[Peace-discuss] Impeachment

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The large number of Americans who favor impeachment is
remarkable, given that it so rarely discussed in the
corporate media. Here's a timorous counter example, from
today's Washington Post.  --CGE]


Near Paul Revere Country, Anti-Bush Cries Get Louder
By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006; A01

HOLYOKE, Mass. -- To drive through the mill towns and curling
country roads here is to journey into New England's
impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have
called for the investigation and possible impeachment of
President Bush.

Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted
earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock
salt, approve school budgets, and impeach the president for
lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for
sanctioning torture.

Window cleaner Ira Clemons put down his squeegee in the lobby
of a city mall and stroked his goatee as he considered the
question: Would you support your congressman's call to impeach
Bush? His smile grew until it looked like a three-quarters moon.

"Why not? The man's been lying from Jump Street on the war in
Iraq," Clemons said. "Bush says there were weapons of mass
destruction, but there wasn't. Says we had enough soldiers,
but we didn't. Says it's not a civil war -- but it is." He
added: "I was really upset about 9/11 -- so don't lie to me."

It would be a considerable overstatement to say the fledgling
impeachment movement threatens to topple a presidency -- there
are just 33 House co-sponsors of a motion by Rep. John Conyers
Jr. (D-Mich.) to investigate and perhaps impeach Bush, and a
large majority of elected Democrats think it is a bad idea.
But talk bubbles up in many corners of the nation, and on the
Internet, where several Web sites have led the charge, giving
liberals an outlet for anger that has been years in the making.

"The value of a powerful idea, like impeachment of the
president for criminal acts, is that it has a long shelf life
and opens a debate," said Bill Goodman of the Center for
Constitutional Rights, which represents Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted last month to
urge Congress to impeach Bush, as have state Democratic
parties, including those of New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina
and Wisconsin. A Zogby International poll showed that 51
percent of respondents agreed that Bush should be impeached if
he lied about Iraq, a far greater percentage than believed
President Bill Clinton should be impeached during the Monica
S. Lewinsky scandal.

And Harper's Magazine this month ran a cover piece titled "The
Case for Impeachment: Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush."

"If the president says 'We made mistakes,' fine, let's move
on," said Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.). "But if he lied
to get America into a war, I can't imagine anything more
impeachable."

Democrats remain far from unified. Prominent party leaders --
and a large majority of those in Congress -- distance
themselves from the effort. They say the very word is a
distraction, that talk of impeachment and censure reflect the
polarization of politics. Activists spend too many hours
dialing Democratic politicians and angrily demanding
impeachment votes, they say.

In California, poet Kevin Hearle, an impeachment supporter, is
challenging liberal Rep. Tom Lantos -- who opposes impeachment
-- in the Democratic primary in June.

"Impeachment is an outlet for anger and frustration, which I
share, but politics ain't therapy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a
Massachusetts liberal who declined to sign the Conyers
resolution. "Bush would much rather debate impeachment than
the disastrous war in Iraq."

The GOP establishment has welcomed the threat. It has been a
rough patch for the party -- Bush's approval ratings in polls
are lower than for any president in recent history. With
midterm elections in the offing, Republican leaders view
impeachment as kerosene poured on the bonfires of their party
base.

"The Democrats' plan for 2006?" Republican National Committee
Chairman Ken Mehlman wrote in a fundraising e-mail Thursday.
"Take the House and Senate and impeach the president. With our
nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?"

The argument for an impeachment inquiry -- which draws support
from prominent constitutional scholars such as Harvard's
Laurence H. Tribe and former Reagan deputy attorney general
Bruce Fein -- centers on Bush's conduct before and after the
invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It is argued that Bush and his officials conspired to
manufacture evidence of weapons of mass destruction to
persuade Congress to approve the invasion. Former Treasury
secretary Paul H. O'Neill told CBS News's "60 Minutes" that
"from the very beginning there was a conviction that Saddam
Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go . . . it was
all about finding a way to do it." And a senior British
intelligence official wrote in what is now known as the
"Downing Street memo" that Bush officials were intent on
fixing "the intelligence and the facts . . . around the policy."

Critics point to Bush's approval of harsh interrogations of
prisoners captured Iraq and Afghanistan, tactics that human
rights groups such as Amnesty International say amount to
torture. Bush also authorized warrantless electronic
surveillance of telephone calls and e-mails, subjecting
possibly thousands of Americans each year to eavesdropping
since 2001.

"Bush is saying 'I'm the president' and, on a range of issues
-- from war to torture to illegal surveillance -- 'I can do as
I like,' " said Michael Ratner of the Center for
Constitutional Rights. "This administration needs to be
slapped down and held accountable for actions that could
change the shape of our democracy."

Tribe wrote Conyers, dismissing Bush's defense of warrantless
surveillance as "poppycock." It constituted, Tribe concluded,
"as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever
having studied."

But posed against this bill of aggrievement are legal and
practical realities. Not all scholars, even of a liberal bent,
agree that Bush has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Bush's legal advice may be wrong, they say, but still reside
within the bounds of reason.

"The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a
Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad," said Cass R.
Sunstein, a professor of constitutional law at the University
of Chicago. "There is a very good argument that the president
had it wrong on WMD in Iraq but that he was acting in complete
good faith."

Sunstein argues that Bush's decision to conduct surveillance
of Americans without court approval flowed from Congress's
vote to allow an armed struggle against al-Qaeda. "If you can
kill them, why can't you spy on them?" Sunstein said, adding
that this is a minority view.

Here in Massachusetts and Vermont, though, in the back roads
and on the streets of Holyoke and Springfield, the discontent
with Bush is palpable. These are states that, per capita, have
sent disproportionate numbers of soldiers to Iraq. Many in
these middle- and working-class towns are not pleased that so
many friends and cousins are coming back wounded or dead.

"He picks and chooses his information and can't admit it's
erroneous, and he annoys me," said Colleen Kucinski, walking
Aleks, 5, and Gregory, 2, home.

Would she support impeachment? Kucinski wags her head "yes"
before the question is finished. "Without a doubt. This is far
more serious than Clinton and Monica. This is about life and
death. We're fighting a war on his say-so and it was all wrong."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company