[Peace-discuss] At last!

[Paul Patton]

*Raising the Issue of Impeachment *
  *by John Nichols *
     As President Bush and his aides scramble to explain new revelations
regarding Bush's authorization of spying on the international telephone
calls and emails of Americans, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, has begun a process that could lead to the censure, and perhaps
the impeachment, of the president and vice president.

U.S. Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who was a critical
player in the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations into presidential
wrongdoing, has introduced a package of resolutions that would censure
President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to
investigate the Administration's possible crimes and make recommendations
regarding grounds for impeachment.

The Conyers resolutions add a significant new twist to the debate about how
to hold the administration to account. Members of Congress have become
increasingly aggressive in the criticism of the White House, with U.S.
Senator Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, saiying Monday, "Americans have been
stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous
President. It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a
consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country's
law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution." Even Republicans,
including Senate Judiciary Committee chair Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania,
are talking for the first time about mounting potentially serious
investigations into abuses of power by the president.

But Conyers is seeking to do much more than schedule a committee hearing, or
even launch a formal inquiry. He is proposing that the Congress use all of
the powers that are available to it to hold the president and vice president
to account – up to and including the power to impeach the holders of the
nation's most powerful positions and to remove them from office.

The first of the three resolutions introduced by Conyers, H.Res.635, asks
that the Congress establish a select committee to investigate whether
members of the administration made moves to invade Iraq before receiving
congressional authorization, manipulated pre-war intelligence, encouraged
the use of torture in Iraq and elsewhere, and used their positions to
retaliate against critics of the war.

The select committee would be asked to make recommendations regarding
grounds for possible impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

The second resolution, H.Res.636, asks that the Congress to censure the
president "for failing to respond to requests for information concerning
allegations that he and others in his Administration misled Congress and the
American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq, misstated and
manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for the
war, countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of
persons in Iraq, and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of
his Administration, for failing to adequately account for specific
misstatements he made regarding the war, and for failing to comply with
Executive Order 12958." (Executive Order 12958, issued in 1995 by former
President Bill Clinton, seeks to promote openness in government by
prescribing a uniform system for classifying, safeguarding, and
declassifying national security information.)

A third resolution, H.Res.637, would censure Cheney for a similar set of
complaints.

"The people of this country are waking up to the severity of the lies,
crimes, and abuses of power committed by this president and his
administration," says Jon Bonifaz, a co-founder of the
AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, an alliance of more than100 grassroots
groups that has detailed Bush administration wrongdoing and encouraged a
Congressional response. Bonifaz, an attorney and the author of the book,
Warrior King: The Case for Impeaching George Bush (Nation Books), argues
that, "Now is the time to return to the rule of law and to hold those who
have defied the Constitution accountable for their actions."

Bonifaz is right. But it is unlikely that the effort to censure Bush and
Cheney, let alone impeach them, will get far without significant organizing
around the country. After all, the House is controlled by allies of the
president who have displayed no inclination to hold him to account. Indeed,
only a few Democrats, such as Conyers, have taken seriously the
Constitutional issues raised by the administration's misdeeds.

Members of Congress in both parties will need to feel a lot of heat if these
improtant measures are going to get much traction in this Congress.

The grassroots group Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), which has had a
good deal of success organizing activists who want the Democrats to take a
more aggressive stance in challenging the administration, will play a
critical role in the effort to mobilize support for the Conyers resolutions,
as part of a new Censure Bush Coalition campaign. (The campaign's website
can be found at www.censurebush.org)

PDA director Tim Carpenter says his group plans to "mobilize and organize a
broad base coalition that will demand action from Congress to investigate
the lies of the Bush administration and their conduct related to the war in
Iraq."

Getting this Congress to get serious about maintaining checks and balances
on the Bush administration will be a daunting task. But the recent
revelations regarding domestic spying will make it easier. There are a lot
of Americans who share the view of U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin,
that Bush and Cheney have exceeded their authority. As Feingold says of
Bush, "He is the president, not a king."

It was the bitter experience of dealing with King George III led the
founders of this country to write a Constitution that empowers Congress to
hold presidents and vice accountable for their actions.

It is this power that John Conyers, the senior member of the House committee
charged with maintaining the system of checks and balances established by
those founders, is now asking the Congress to employ in the service of the
nation that Constitution still governs.

*An expanded paperback edition of John Nichols' biography of Vice President
Dick Cheney, The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney: Unlocking the Mysteries
of the Most Powerful Vice President in American
History<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595580255/commondreams-20/ref=nosim>(The
New Press: 2005), is available nationwide at independent bookstores
and
at www.amazon.com<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595580255/commondreams-20/ref=nosim>.
The book features an exclusive interview with Joe Wilson and a chapter on
the vice president's use and misuse of intelligence. Publisher's Weekly
describes the book as "a Fahrenheit 9/11 for Cheney" and Esquire magazine
says it "reveals the inner Cheney." *
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