Impeach Cheney first
by David Swanson
May 5, 2006

We should impeach Vice President Dick Cheney first, and President George Bush immediately thereafter. This idea is not original with me. It's been seen on bumper stickers for quite some time. My attention has been called to it by the fact that Congresswoman and Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters is talking about it. See below.

I'm persuaded of thevalue of this approach for several reasons. Among activists who very much want impeachment, one can hear a long list of fears and concerns about how things might go wrong, how impeachment could help Republicans who come around and back it, how impeachment could take energy away from elections, etc. But by far the most common of the nonsensical fears one hears is this one: "Impeaching Bush would give us Cheney, who is worse."

By proposing to impeach Cheney first, we eliminate this fear.

I cannot conceive of a serious investigation, with subpoena power, of either Bush or Cheney that would not incriminate the other as well. If I'm right about this, then the whole debate over which of these two criminals to impeach first, in one sense, doesn't mean much. But for purposes of organizing activists today it means everything. We need as many people as possible – including those terrified by Cheney – to push for an impeachment investigation. This campaign, and an investigation itself, should we get one, serve educational and political purposes. They further discredit Bush and Cheney while helping to build an opposition.

Our choices are not between impeachment and elections but between both and neither. Polls suggest it will be very difficult to win elections without demanding impeachment.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling

After an investigation, we will have to fight for impeachment, and after that for conviction and removal from office by the Senate, and after that for criminal indictments. While millions of Americans who favor impeachment have announced to each other that this goal is impossible or extremely unlikely to be achieved, almost every single one of them has implicitly determined that conviction in the Senate (which has never been achieved with a president in U.S. history) is a guaranteed lock. Thus "impeachment" is equated with "removal from office." We should bear in mind that Clinton was impeached but not removed from office. We very much need to remove Bush and Cheney from office, but it's remarkable how quickly we jump ahead to that stage when searching for reasons to fear and doubt ourselves.

If we were to impeach Bush and remove him from office and somehow not manage to do the same to Cheney, there would be a number of advantages to this. The man who is running much of the government backstage would be thrust up front. His 18 percent approval rating makes Bush's 32 percent look stellar. A President Cheney would be a lame duck and a walking advertisement against the Republican party and its Democratic allies. ...