US Diary: if that old impeachment bandwagon keeps rolling along, it might just roll right over Bush

Impeachment Momentum Builds -- by Matthew Rothschild

Slowly and steadily, the drive for the impeachment of George W. Bush is building.

Neil Young’s song, “Impeach the President,” has given the effort increasing visibility.

And a story in the Boston Globe by Charlie Savage on April 30 showed just how necessary the impeachment drive is.

“President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with the Constitution,” Savage wrote. Bush has done so by issuing so-called signing statements on “more than one out of every ten bills he has signed.”

Administration spokesmen told Savage that Bush “will faithfully execute the law in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.”

But there’s the rub.

It’s not up to him to judge that.

It’s up to the courts.

He is sworn to execute the laws, not to sit on them.

Fortunately, Americans all over the country are rising up against this imperial President.

Thirty-seven members of Congress are now on board the Conyers resolution to create a select committee to investigate grounds for impeachment. (You can find the list at afterdowningstreet.org .)

Three state legislatures have passed resolutions urging Congress to proceed with impeachment, using a procedure that Thomas Jefferson laid out in his legislative manual. Those three are Vermont, Illinois, and California (and the latter has called for impeaching Cheney, too, an eminently sensible idea!).

More than a dozen towns and cities around the country have called for impeachment, according to www.impeachpac.org .

And five Vermont townships just delivered petitions to Speaker Dennis Hastert to begin impeachment proceedings.

The cries for impeachment need to grow louder still, though, if we are to restrain this President from even more lawlessness.

(Matthew Rothschild has been with The Progressive since 1983. His McCarthyism Watch web column has chronicled more than 150 incidents of repression since 9/11.)