Impeachment: the case for and against slinging the sorry ass of George Bush back to Crawford to cut brush instead of screwing up two countries

1. Why Impeachment Is Crucial – by Jennifer Van Bergen/TomPaine.com

With the Democrats in the majority in Congress for the first time in 12 years, and after six years of executive overreach and civil liberties incursions by the Republican administration and Congress, one would think impeachment would be in the air. But many progressives and Democrats—even some who have been on the front lines demanding investigations and prosecutions—view impeachment as the wrong approach and a waste of effort. They say that impeachment can’t take place without Republican backing, which will never happen. They say that impeachment will take time and energy away from more important business, such as getting out of Iraq, lowering taxes, congressional ethics and pulling our budget back into line.

These arguments present a false dilemma, however. The choice is not between impeachment and Iraq, or impeachment and ethics, or impeachment and the budget. Impeachment proceedings are not the beginning but the end result of a healing process for the nation that needs to begin now. Impeachment begins with investigations.

The ever-growing list of egregious wrongs by this administration has been hypocritically ignored by the Republican Congress. When you remember what the Republicans did to Clinton over a peccadillo and compare that to the high crimes committed by Bush and his administration, there should not even be an argument over whether to move toward serious investigations with impeachment in mind. We are not talking bipartisanship; we are talking about law and morals.

The charges against this administration are so extensive there are several books that make the legal case ( John Nichols , Elizabeth Holzman , Center for Constitutional Rights , David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky , Howard Zinn ).

Impeachment groups have formed across the country; at least one major city council, San Francisco’s, passed an impeachment resolution; the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, has issued a 200-plus page report; and there has even a citizens’ impeachment trial, complete with indictment, hearing and verdict.

The grounds for impeachment are far greater now than they were when Congress threatened to impeach President Nixon and there is a tremendous groundswell for impeachment which the newly-elected Congress would do well to heed.

Congress must start the national healing process by selecting an independent prosecutor. We don’t need another commission to merely make a report that finds some comfortable middle and allows the administration to play the national security card to further hide its wrongdoing. A prosecutor will be able to gather evidence from all corners, interview those with real information and see the entire picture. He or she can decide, on the basis of the law, where culpability lies and what charges to bring.

A sitting president or vice president cannot be tried in a court of law This is why impeachment is necessary at the end of investigation, if criminal acts are found. If an independent prosecutor finds that our leaders have committed crimes, this information must be brought before the House, and that body must vote to bring impeachment charges against them. The prosecutor could wait until the officials leave office, but there are strong reasons not to do so. First, if our leaders are criminals, they should not be permitted to retain office for even one more day; impeachment will stop the crimes from continuing. If we allow criminal officials to remain in office, we are as guilty as they for their crimes. It is already clear that this administration has severely damaged America’s reputation abroad and undermined our ability to hold other nations accountable to high moral ideals. Impeachment will ameliorate some of these effects.

Finally, there is a great sense of powerlessness and rage that the populace expressed strongly through the midterm elections. But more than elections are needed to address the deep concerns so many people have. A nagging malaise, a gray depression has afflicted the country, and ordinary people—those who are not politicians or journalists or activists or lawyers—have no outlet for these feelings and no sense of remedy.

Democracy is about the power of voice. All people have the right to speak and be heard. But the past six years have silenced millions, and merely putting the Democrats (whose track record is not sufficiently better than the Republicans to warrant celebration) back into office will not end the silence or cure the depression or the sense of powerlessness. Americans know that crimes have been committed in their name. Many now perhaps wish that the wrongs would simply fade and all would be as it was before. But we all know that crimes demand punishment. Punishment is the only way to even partially repair the damage.

Immediate investigation with an eye to impeachment may also forestall war with Iran and prevent worse action in Iraq. Cabinet members facing a criminal investigation and impeachment will think twice before they commit more criminal acts.

The right wing is already regrouping and restarting nasty attacks against Democrats who threaten their belligerent drives. We have the initiative now. We will lose it if Republicans take the stage and are allowed to divert attention away from the real issues.

This nation has been deeply injured, but not by the continued threat of terrorism. Instead, we have been afflicted by the criminal acts and executive overreaches of this administration. Cancer cannot be healed by being avoided; if we do not root out the causes, this cancer will spread from within. If we do not find a way to begin healing now and learn to engage again in healthy national discourse, the Democrats cannot save us. Nobody can.

(Jennifer Van Bergen is a journalist with a law degree. Her book The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America has been called a “primer for citizenship.” She can be reached at jvbxyz@earthlink.net)


2. Impeachment At Our Peril – by David Corn/TomPaine.com

Let's stipulate three propositions. First, George W. Bush led the nation into an elective war with false information and false assurances. Second, Bush acted with reckless abandon and immense neglect by inadequately planning for what would come after the initial U.S. invasion of Iraq. Third, Bush botched key decisions regarding the war, while refusing to acknowledge the hellish reality his invasion created. As a consequence, thousands of Americans are dead, as are hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Impeachment would be a suitable punishment for such actions. Still, congressional Democrats ought to resist the calls to engage in constitutional patricide.

The decision to pursue impeachment is a political decision. After all, everything justifiable is not always wise. There is a substantive argument for impeachment against a president who has misguided the country into a disastrous war. But the matter of impeachment, like most issues in the real world, cannot be considered in a vacuum. The key question is not whether there is a case, but whether it should be prosecuted. The Democrats would do so at their peril—and at risk to their agenda, which includes stopping the war in Iraq.

The Democrats could not mount an impeachment campaign without it becoming the defining act of the new Democratic era on Capitol Hill. Just as Bush is now defined by the war, the Dems would be identified wholly with impeachment—no matter what else they did. And impeachment would be depicted (and seen) by many as an act of recrimination and revenge—whether or not a solid case exists. It would polarize an electorate moving (even if slightly) in leftward directions. It would split the Democrats; only a small number of House Democrats have expressed any interest in such a crusade. Impeachment would eclipse the positive components of the Democratic legislative program that can actually help American families—such as boosting the minimum wage, lowering college student loan rate and fixing the alternative minimum tax.

An impeachment campaign would also distract from the debate over Iraq—which has recently been breaking in favor of disengagement. (Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to Bush on November 6 noting that various withdrawal alternatives ought to be considered; the Iraq Study Group is proposing a troop pullout—without being too specific—as part of the course change Bush needs to ponder.) House and Senate Democrats generally advocate some version of disengagement, yet they have crafted no consensus on the details of withdrawal—and are not likely to do so soon, according to senior congressional Democratic aides. And only a handful of Democratic House members believe Congress at this point should mount a true intervention and cut off the funding of the war. With Bush showing no sign of rethinking his fundamental strategy in Iraq, the Democrats need to focus on what can be done to undo Bush's mess in Iraq—or, at least, to remove the United States from that mess. With Democrats somewhat split over how best to get out of Iraq, they do not need another internal fight that would subsume the Iraq issue, which ought to remain the top priority.

Impeachment advocates argue that they are merely exercising a constitutional option, adhering to fundamental obligations and answering, even if hesitantly, the call of (constitutional) duty. A president lies us into war. Aren't we compelled by principles to impeach him, no matter the political consequences? But the Constitution is not a political suicide pact. Impeachment would look like a bold power grab—and that could trigger a backlash against the Democrats (as it did with the Republicans during the Clinton wars). Any impeachment campaign worth its anger would have to target Bush and Dick Cheney. Otherwise, what would be the point? So the final result of this impeachment-a-rama would be Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi as president. (Unless Cheney resigned in time for Bush to appoint a non-impeachable Republican as veep. Condoleezza Rice? John McCain?)

Many voters (particularly independents) will see the Democrats—rightly or wrongly—as power-hungry and exploiting an unpopular device to seize control of the White House, even as an election approaches. Remember all the criticism of the previous impeachment drive as antidemocratic, a violation of the popular will? How will this one play? Yes, the voters spoke in the recent election, but the balance of power in Congress is still nearly 50-50. Also, Bush is right: There was, as he put it in early 2005, “an “accountability moment.” The voters had a chance to toss him out of office in 2004 for misrepresenting the case for war and for botching the prosecution of the war, and they chose (by a narrow margin) not to do so. You want to increase the Republican chances of winning back Congress and staying in the White House? Then push impeachment.

There's another argument against impeachment: It will force its proponents to act as extremists. If you favor impeachment, then you must be committed to going all the way and this will include demanding (repeatedly) that the Democrats in Congress do the same. Impeachment is indeed an extreme action. To support it means that you believe the situation is dire and there's not a moment to waste. This will oblige impeachment partisans to assail Democrats—including Pelosi, who has declared impeachment “off the table,” and incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—for not seeing it this way. So Republicans and the White House officials can sit back and enjoy Democrats clawing each other over an issue not likely to be popular with non-Democratic voters (i.e., the people who just handed the Democrats their congressional victories).

Impeachment is a substitute—a wishful shortcut?—for the difficult legislating and organizing that the Democratic Party and progressives must do to win the country in 2008. The Dems have a window of opportunity at the moment to show the public what Democratic governance looks like. They should investigate the Bush administration on many fronts, including how Bush misrepresented the prewar intelligence and how he bungled the war, as well as Bush's expansive claims of executive power and how he has put such imperial thinking into practice (wiretaps, detentions, etc.). Perhaps such investigations will produce information or a showdown (say, the White House refusing to turn over information to Congress) that would strengthen the legal and political cases for impeachment. But in order to create a lasting and positive relationship with the electorate, Democrats must deliver legislatively and produce significant bills that connect with the concerns of Americans. That's job No. 1.

The Dems will have about 10 minutes to rebrand themselves when the new Congress convenes. Impeachment will be a serious impediment to that effort. Worse, it would become a black hole from which little, if any, political energy could escape. It would trump all else. After the recent elections, the congressional Democrats have Bush and the Republicans at a disadvantage; they have (as the cliché goes) the political capital of the moment. Spending it on impeachment would be a waste.

(David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and the co-author, along with Michael Isikoff, of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War. Read his blog at http://www.davidcorn.com)