[Peace-discuss] Democrats as co-conspirators

[C. G. Estabrook]

[It's being noticed in the provinces.  --CGE]

	Published on Tuesday, June 17, 2008
	by The Brattleboro Reformer (Vermont)
	Impeachment: It Still Matters
	Editorial

Last week, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, again introduced 35 articles of 
impeachment against President Bush.

They were referred to the House Judiciary Committee, where no action is likely 
to be taken.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., 
strongly supported the impeachment of President Bush three years ago.

In an interview with Harpers magazine in 2005, Conyers was asked why impeachment 
was important.

“To take away the excuse that we didn’t know,” Conyers said at the time. “So 
that two or four or 10 years from now, if somebody should ask, ‘Where were you, 
Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?’ when the Bush administration 
declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary 
government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary 
insanity, can say that ’somehow it escaped our notice’ that the President was 
setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.”

In 2005, when the Republican Party was crowing about a permanent shift in 
American politics that meant conservatives would control government for decades 
to come, Conyers was in the minority.

He couldn’t get any one to pay attention to the offenses committed by the Bush 
administration.

But then came the Downing Street Memos, which revealed how the Iraq war was sold 
under false pretenses. And then came Hurricane Katrina, and the nation watched 
how the Bush administration left New Orleans to die. And the weight of the 
accumulated lies by the administration grew heavier and heavier.

Taken together, all this was how the Democrats took control of Congress in the 
2006 elections. Yet one of the first acts of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., when 
she became Speaker of the House, was to declare that impeachment “was off the 
table.”

The evidence continues to accumulate of the lies that were told to justify an 
invasion of Iraq, of the war crimes and constitutional abuses committed in the 
course of the so-called war on terror, of the subversion of the Constitution by 
the Bush administration in so many different ways.

Yet Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership in Congress want no part of 
impeachment. They still think impeachment is a distraction. They still think it 
is unnecessary, and could hurt the party’s chances in November. They still think 
that it’s better to run out the clock and let the Bush administration slink out 
of town.

We disagree. What Conyers said in 2005, when he was powerless to act upon his 
words, still holds true today, when he finally has the power to start the 
impeachment process.

This is about history, the historical record and ensuring the truth is known. 
This is about putting the blame of this nation’s worst foreign policy disaster 
solely on the shoulders of the president who created it. This is about letting 
future presidents know that the rule of law still means something and that the 
Constitution applies to everyone.

This is not about vindictiveness and partisan politics. The acts committed by 
the Bush administration rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that 
our founders said justifies the impeachment of public officials. And if the 
Democrats refuse to act upon the articles of impeachment, they are no better 
than the administration in upholding their oaths of office. They are 
co-conspirators, and history will not judge them kindly for putting politics 
above the Constitution.

© 2008 The Reformer