A public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney.
In the video segment linked to here (available via javascript pop-up window from the main linked page), Bill Moyers gets perspective on the role of impeachment in American political life from Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION’s John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT. Transcript is available here.
I’m just old enough to remember Nixon and Watergate. I remember how Ford pardoned Nixon. I remember the attempt to run Clinton out of office. And even though I’ve wanted to see them impeached for a while, I was starting to lean against it, because it seemed like it wouldn’t do any good. It would come too late to get them out of office, and it would just divide the country even further. Plus, there’s no way the GOP is getting into power in ’08, so why even fool with it?
Then someone posted something in the MeFi forums today that changed my mind:
On January 20th, 2009, if George Bush and Dick Cheney are not appropriately held to account this administration will hand off a toolbox with more powers than any president has ever had, more powers than the founders could have imagined. And that box may be handed to Hillary Clinton or it may be handed to Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or someone else. But whoever gets it, one of the things we know about power is that people don’t give away the tools. They don’t give them up. The only way we take tools out of that box is if we sanction George Bush and Dick Cheney now and say the next president cannot govern as these men have.
I’m not saying the next president will use abuse those tools. I am saying that scaling back presidential power isn’t going to be anyone’s first priority after an election. And sooner or later, someone else will come along and start abusing those powers again: wiretapping americans, detention without trial or even pressed charges, the whole shootin’ match.
Look at what’s happening. The President is doing everything he can to institutionally hobble our checks and balances system. He says he’s got the right to tell Congress that they don’t have the right to know what he’s doing about spying on American citizens. He says he’s got the authority to kidnap people and hold them in some God-forsaken corner of Siberia without anything even resembling legal or political accountability. And that’s just for starters. Bush has actively and overtly tried to subvert the very thing he swore to uphold and protect: the Constitution of the United States of America.
Bruce Fein made it crystal clear it’s no longer a matter of choice. Congress must begin the process of impeachment and holding Bush and Co. in contempt, or the system of checks and balances as envisioned by the founding fathers will be perverted and damaged.
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