Without a doubt, the United States has never before been faced with such a great need to remove its Chief Executive from office, as it has been under the leadership of George W. Bush. A quick recount of a few of the myriad of reasons for this is worth noting:
Some of the most important grounds for impeaching George W. Bush The Iraq WarThere are few decisions that are as important to a nation as the decision to commit it to war. All reasonable people agree that war should be entered into only under extreme circumstances, and as a last resort.
Yet, in 2003 George Bush made the unilateral decision to preemptively invade a country that posed not only no immediate threat to us, but barely any threat at all. And to justify that decision to the American people and to Congress, the Bush administration repeatedly manipulated and twisted intelligence data in order to create the appearance that Iraq presented an immediate threat to our country – as meticulously detailed in Seymour Hersh’s book,
Chain of Command, and elsewhere.
Failure to execute the laws of our countryThe main function of our President, as defined in our Constitution, is to faithfully execute the laws of our country. But George Bush doesn’t see it that way. Rather, he maintains that he
has the right to decide unilaterally on the constitutionality of a law, and then refuse to follow it if he deems it to be unconstitutional. If that isn’t grounds for impeachment, at least it should be grounds for requiring Bush to go back to grade school and take some remedial courses in order to learn about the separation of powers provided by our Constitution.
Gross and frequent violations of the Geneva Convention for humane treatment of prisoners of warAs the most powerful nation in the world, when the United States shows contempt for international law, as it has repeatedly done under George Bush’s leadership, then it sets an example for other countries to do the same, thereby making our world a much more dangerous place for everyone.
Under George Bush’s leadership we have repeatedly violated the Geneva Convention’s requirements for the humane treatment of prisoners, including torture and indefinite confinement without charges, as documented by
Amnesty International and the
International Red Cross, and as discussed by Jimmy Carter in his
recent book. Not only are these actions immoral and create a great danger to our country (by generating hatred against us throughout the world), but they have failed utterly to produce any compensating benefits.
Illegal Warantless domestic spying on American citizensAlthough Bush has repeatedly assured American citizens and Congress that his
warrantless domestic spying program is “legal” and directed at catching terrorists rather than spying on his domestic opponents, he has made no efforts to offer evidence for either of those assertions. Furthermore,
knowledgeable sources have maintained that, though thousands of warantless wiretaps per year have been ordered and conducted by the Bush administration, fewer than ten per year are justified by the constitutional standard of “reasonable cause” for suspicion.
Other grounds for impeachmentThe above noted issues constituted just a few of many grounds for impeachment of George W. Bush. Other grounds include the outing of a CIA agent solely for political retribution, failure to make a reasonable effort to protect U.S. citizens against the deadly Hurricane
Katrina, and failure to take any action against, let alone even recognize the importance of the threat to our planet of
global warming.
Why should Congress be more aggressive towards the abuses of the Bush administration at this time?Thousands of DUers, including myself, have been terribly frustrated over the failure of Congress to show appropriate outrage, let alone take appropriate actions against the many transgressions of the Bush administration. It is frequently pointed out in defense of our Democratic Congresspersons and Senators that a Republican controlled House and Senate will never carry through on any meaningful action against a Republican President, so it would be meaningless for Democrats to make the effort. Setting aside the question of whether or not the premise of that assertion is true, there are some very good reasons indeed for Democrats to make the effort – the most important one being that the transgressions of the Bush administration are screaming to be publicized, and only by publicizing them will the ground be prepared politically to take meaningful action against them or even slow them down, thereby ameliorating the great damage they are doing to our country.
Yet, even a mere censure resolution, as recently
introduced by Senator Feingold, attracted only two supporters in the U.S. Senate.
Then why has Congress been so unenthusiastic about aggressively holding the Bush administration accountable for its transgressions?That is the trillion dollar question. And though I certainly don’t have a full answer to that question, I definitely have some ideas.
First of all I will say that I may as well have titled this post “Why U.S. Politicians Have Moved so Far to the Right”, because the answer is exactly the same: First and foremost, politicians are concerned about remaining in office and maintaining political viability.
The unfortunate and ominous truth of the matter is that some very dangerous trends in our country have recently converged to push politicians of all stripes way to the right. Those three trends are: 1) The role of money in politics; 2) The abandonment of our national news media of its traditional watchdog role; and, 3) Election fraud.
Let’s face it. Compared to George W. Bush, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal – or at least he was forced to act like one. Under his administration the
Environmental Protection Agency was created, we initiated
diplomatic relations with Communist China, the
top tax bracket was over 70 %, and one of his appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court was the primary author of the
Roe v. Wade decision.
Today’s unmentionable issuesBut today, because of the three above mentioned trends, there are certain issues that are almost completely off limits for mainstream politicians:
Questioning the validity of a presidential election is so off limits that only one Senator (
Barbara Boxer) dared to formally object to the certification of the highly questionable
2004 presidential election. And even a book that provided excellent discussions about the dangers of DRE voting machines felt obliged to state that the 2004 presidential election was
not stolen.
Senator Richard Durbin, on the floor of the U.S. Senate,
courageously complained about the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war by the Bush administration, in very blunt but accurate terms. For that he was
vigorously castigated by the news media and Republicans, and he received very little support from his fellow Democrats.
Cynthia McKinney was our only national elected representative to
question the motives, rather than just the competence, of the Bush administration regarding its role in the 9-11 attacks on our country. For that her House seat was
aggressively targeted in 2002, resulting in her being voted out of office (only to regain her House seat in 2004), and she has even been ostracized by many if not most of her fellow Democrats.
Even talking about the problem of poverty in our country brings on vigorous allegations of “
class warfare” from our corporate media, so that few of our mainstream politicians have had the courage to do that.
John Edwards,
Wes Clark, and
Howard Dean are courageous exceptions to this rule, among the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, from what I could tell from speeches I heard during that campaign.
The role of money, the corporate media, and election fraudThese factors act synergistically to turn our politicians to the right. The American public is way to the left of most of our mainstream politicians on all important issues (due in no small part to the
information provided through the internet). 62 % of Americans believe that we should have a
national health insurance plan. 76 % of Americans believe the war in Iraq has
damaged our relationships with the rest of the world. Two thirds of Americans are
against a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortions. 39 % of Americans even believe that the
2004 election was stolen. The list goes on and on. But most important, only 29% of Americans now approve of
George Bush’s performance in office. So where is all the political opposition that such numbers should generate?
The problem is, and all of our national elected representatives know this, that if they say or do anything that scares the powerful elites in this country they will face, in addition to the withholding of campaign contributions, a barrage of public insults. As
Chris Matthews has shown, even those who express a dislike for our pResident are labeled as “whackos”. The evidence for this is too abundant to discuss in much more detail here, but I will just mention here two excellent books that provide numerous examples:
Lapdogs by Eric Boehlert and
What Liberal Media by Eric Alterman.
The ever present danger of election fraud, with today’s multiplicity of
dirty tricks,
black box voting machines, and
fraudulent purging of registered voters, must also weigh heavily on the minds of today’s Democratic politicians, who must have a good idea of the problem even though many of them say and do little or nothing about it. Nobody knows how many votes today’s right wing power brokers are capable of stealing in any given election. But it stands to reason that if X % of voters are going to be disenfranchised in a given election, then in order for a liberal Democrat to win (assuming that most of the disenfranchised voters are far to the left of center), those votes are probably going to have to come from the center and from the right-center. Thus the temptation to move further to the right.
Is there a case for moderation?This is an age old question, and I certainly don’t have the answers. Like many other DUers I was thrilled that Senator Feingold introduced a censure resolution, and dismayed that only two Senators supported him in that effort. I was thrilled that Senator Boxer officially objected to the 2004 presidential election, but dismayed that no Senators officially supported her in that. I greatly admired Senator Durbin for his public exposing of our treatment of our prisoners of war, but was disappointed that he received so little support from his fellow Democrats. And I want to puke when I hear Senator Clinton
publicly compliment the personality of George Bush by saying that he has charisma, among other things.
But then I consider the case of our 16th President. Abraham Lincoln is rightfully generally regarded as the greatest President in the history of our country. The main reason for that is his single greatest achievement – the ending of slavery in our country through an executive order, the
Emancipation Proclamation.
Some say that Lincoln does not deserve a great amount of credit for that because his order was necessitated by other considerations (primarily winning the Civil War), and in any event he was merely a moderate on the question of slavery.
That attitude does not do him justice. It is evident from the totality of his speeches and actions that for most if not all of his life he hated slavery. Yet he publicly maintained a politically viable attitude towards it, repeatedly proclaiming that he did not believe it wise to abolish slavery where it already existed. Because he maintained a politically viable public stance towards slavery he was elected President of the United States. And despite his “moderate” public stance towards slavery, his anti-slavery views were well enough known that his ascendance to the Presidency resulted in the quick succession from our nation of eleven slave states, which incited the Civil War, and the ending of slavery that soon followed.
Was Lincoln right to adopt a moderate public stance towards slavery? Well, there is little question that had he recommended the abolition of slavery at any time during his political career, he never would have been elected President. And in that case, it probably would have been another several years or even decades before slavery was abolished from this country. So who am I to criticize him for his political calculations on that issue?
Does that mean that I am recommending a moderate stance towards the many impeachable offenses of the Bush administration? Absolutely not. But I
will say that these considerations do give me some understanding of what our Democratic politicians are going through; that I do believe that many of them have beliefs that are far to the left of what they let on; and that I have hope that we and they together will eventually find a way to overcome the reactionary forces that are currently digging our country into the grave.
But on the other hand, let us never forget how tyrants obtain and maintain powerYet we must also consider the parallels between the Bush administration and how Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933 and eventually plunged his country and the world into a terrible war:
The
Reichstag fire, which Hitler blamed on the Communists, and which he used to demonize the Communists and create fear of terror in his country, and which we now know was started by the Nazis, should remind us of the fear mongering used in our country to create support for our “War on Terror”.
The
Enabling Act, which granted Hitler dictatorial powers, and which was passed by a compliant Reichstag (parliament), should remind us of George Bush’s blatant disregard for the laws of our country, even while he proclaims that he is not breaking any laws and that his most fervent desire is to spread democracy throughout the world.
The Nazi concentration camps should remind us of the Bush regime’s blatant disregard for international laws protecting the rights of prisoners, as well as the numerous instances of torture and death occurring in our “detention camps” (And for those who argue that the Nazi concentration camps were far worse in scope than our detention camps, it should be pointed out that that was not the case until almost ten years after Hitler initially came to power in Germany).
The “
referendums” held in Nazi Germany to prove that Hitler continued to enjoy the support of the German people should remind us of the many uninvestigated “irregularities” in some of our own recent national elections, as well as the fact that the computer programs that count our votes are considered “proprietary”, and therefore not available for public inspection.
The German invasion of Poland in 1939,
rationalized by lies that were transparent to the whole world but not to a substantial portion of the German people, should remind us of our invasion of Iraq, similarly rationalized by transparent lies, which are still not transparent to a substantial, though declining minority of people in this country.
The
German Propaganda Ministry should remind us of our corporate news media, as it has so woefully failed to do its job of exposing the worst transgressions of any Presidential administration in the history of our country.
And lastly, consider this quote from “
They Thought They Were Free”, by Milton Meyer, which summarizes in two paragraphs how tyranny became implanted in Germany:
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.