Why President Bush Must Be Impeached

Are we as a nation going to sit by and passively watch as the United States Constitution is relegated to the status of a vague reference document? Will we watch it become nothing more than bleached parchment under glass at the National Archives? Or are we going to stand up for the "living" Constitution, honor and defend it, and actively seek to restore the "checks and balances" between the co-equal branches of government?



The conventional wisdom states that the Democrats, after clawing their way into the majority of both houses of Congress, will blow it big time if they push the idea of impeaching the President, and risk losing their hard-won gains of 2006. But there is no such thing as "risk-free" politics. If they aggressively go after Bush the Democrats might lose seats in 2008, or they might gain seats, or it might be a draw. We have seen them lose elections in the past by being far too risk-averse.

The process of impeachment is slow and deliberative. The House would have to vote at least twice: once, to approve a Judiciary Committee inquiry into possible articles of impeachment; and then again to vote on each article. If the full House passed one or more of the articles there would be a trial in the Senate that could last for weeks or months. Removing Bush from office would require 67 Senate votes, which is admittedly a tall order. Yet however unlikely such an outcome might be, it would be an exercise in democracy and show the Chief Executive that he can no longer ignore the powers and prerogatives of the Judicial and Legislative branches of our government. It would send a clear message to Bush that he must stop this nonsense about "unitary executives," "signing statements," and "inherent powers."
...The Bush administration has blocked all Congressional efforts thus far to look into the NSA's spying operation, and has refused even to turn over the presidential order creating it. Even The New York Times, the "paper of record" that has served to legitimize Bush's "war on terror," routinely refers to the NSA's surveillance program as "Mr. Bush's illegal domestic spying." In addition, there is a mountain of evidence that Bush gave false information to the Senate concerning pre-war intelligence about Iraq, and that he lied to the American people about Saddam Hussein's WMDs and his links to Al Qaeda. Bush's jettisoning of the Geneva Conventions, his sanctioning of torture and secret prisons, and his jailing of people for years without due process have yet to be looked into by the Congress.

(More at this page.)

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