Bruce Fein: The Heart of Queens-Can Nancy Pelosi single-handedly take impeachment off the table?

[babylonsister]

Cross-posted from eds.

The Heart of Queens
Can Nancy Pelosi single-handedly take impeachment off the table?
By Bruce Fein
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007, at 4:49 PM ET


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is proving to be the surprise O. Henry ending to last November's elections. The American voters gave Democrats clear control of Congress, rebuked President George W. Bush, and voiced an unequivocal public craving to trade in customary narrow-minded politics for something more inspiring. Yet motivated by partisan concerns over the 2008 elections, the new speaker is following President Bush around like a sheep while he solidifies an imperial presidency and diminishes the Congress into irrelevancy. Just look at the latest ACLU advertisement targeting Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The only thing Pelosi has retained for the Congress is small-minded earmarks to attract political contributions.

If Pelosi persists in her imperious, mean-spirited, and myopic thinking in disregard of her oath to support and defend the Constitution, members of the House should replace her with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

According to public opinion polling, the percentage of voters supporting the impeachments of both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are now approximately 45 and 54 percent, respectively. Most Americans instinctively feel the president is an untrustworthy steward of the Constitution's checks and balances because, among other things, he flouts laws, prohibits White House aides from testifying before Congress, consistently defends an attorney general who is an inveterate liar, and detains citizens and noncitizens indefinitely as enemy combatants on his say-so alone. The prevailing barometer of acute public dissatisfaction with the White House surpasses the corresponding disaffection with President Richard M. Nixon when the Senate Watergate hearings began in May 1973. And Mr. Nixon had recently trounced Sen. George McGovern in the 1972 elections, winning 49 states.
Click Here!

The prospect of an impeachment inquiry by the House judiciary committee would concentrate the minds of the president and vice president wonderfully on obeying rather than sabotaging the Constitution. But Speaker Pelosi has at least figuratively joined hands with the White House in opposition. Emulating the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, she has threatened the removal of Michigan Rep. John Conyers from his chairmanship of the House judiciary committee if an impeachment inquiry were even opened, according to reliable congressional chatter.

With more than four decades of service in the House, Chairman Conyers is a veteran of constitutional battles between the branches. The speaker, in contrast, is a novice on such matters. Unlike Conyers, she never experienced the Nixon impeachment travails that sobered and toughened the chairman against executive abuses and secrecy. If she had, she never would have emboldened President Bush and Vice President Cheney to intensify their assaults on congressional power by pronouncing that "impeachment is off the table."

more...

http://www.slate.com/id/2172547/nav/tap1 /

[ShaneGR]

1. He kind of neglects to point out they elected Dems to end war...

Not to impeach. And Pelosi has twice passed bills for immediate withdraw of troops. He also fails to mention even if they did bring impeachment to the floor it would be a dead bill, probably wouldn't have enough votes to pass the House, and even if it did it would never result in conviction on the Senate floor. So basically waste the last six months of real legislative time before elections season kicks in or impeach.

The argument is so divisive and false.

[babylonsister]

3. And you failed to mention doing the right thing by preserving our Constitution

and what it stands for, which is not happening. That is what Mr. Fein is most concerned about, and I can't consider that false or divisive.

[man4allcats]

Convicted or not, Bush and Cheney

should both be impeached. As to divisiveness, I see nothing more divisive than a Democratically controlled congress that behaves like Republicans. Further, your contention that the Democrats were not elected to impeach is not a fact but rather a point open to contention.

[Zhade]

27. Yet another DUer supporting letting criminals walk.

Sad.

[puebloknot]

30. "...real legislative time before elections season kicks in..."

We've seen nothing *but* electioneering since the Dems were sworn in in January.

The argument is for making an effort to defend what is left of our democratic republic. And you fail to consider that once the door is kicked open into the secret world of Bushco, public outrage just might force removal of Bush and Cheney.

Your argument is so defeatist!

[porphyrian]

2. "I feel like I've been taking crazy pills!" - Mugatu, from Zoolander -n/t

[Me.]

4. Glad To See Him Pursuing This

At a time when members of Congress are claiming that talk of IMPEACHMENT sucks all the air out of the room. But he's wrong about Hoyer, he's the guy who bungled the FISA vote and wouldn't be an improvement on Pelosi.

[babylonsister]

7. I agree about Hoyer; no love lost here. nt

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. Hoyer wants to Impeach the psycho and Pelosi keeps saying NO.

While I think someone like Maxine Waters should be the Speaker, Hoyer is at least trying to honor his oath of office. I'm beginning to think the reason Pelosi refuses to Impeach is because she doesn't want the job! If Dickhead and the psycho are Impeached, she's the prez.

I wouldn't want to have to be responsible for the mess they've created here and around the world, but she DID take an oath of office. It's her DUTY to impeach whether she wants to be prez or not.:(

s Steny Hoyer On Board With Impeaching Cheney?
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2007-07-10 15:21. Congress | Impeachment

Another source says this is fiction, but...

Larry Johnson reports:

Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer are not speaking. The majority of Americans believe Dick Cheney and George Bush should be impeached. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, says no. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, I am told by someone familiar with the inner workings of the House, favors proceeding with impeaching Cheney. But Nancy says no. Pelosi is being described by some as Tom Delay in a skirt, in terms of her refusal to pay attention to what the majority of Americans want.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24499

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. I just sent this article to Pelosi. Something needs to wake the woman up.

Maybe Bruce Fein explaining her DUTY to her will work, but I doubt it.

[babylonsister]

14. Thanks for at least trying. Who knows, maybe she'll even read it.

;)

[Me.]

15. This Excerpt From A Previous Bruce Fein Article Says It Best

"President Woodrow Wilson recanted his no-war pledge, President Franklin D. Roosevelt disowned his balanced budget promise and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., should learn from those examples. She should reconsider her "impeachment is off the table" pledge. As Ralph Waldo Emerson advised, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

As for Hoyer, while I appreciate him being in favor of IMPEACHMENT, his mishandling of the FISA vote makes him someone I wouldn't want to see in the speaker's chair. As for Nancy, it is not her place to take IMPEACHMENT off the table, and I consider her thinking she has the right to do so, to be arrogant beyond belief. Also, though this may not be fair, it ticks me off that we finally get a woman in a position like this and she is handling the position in such an unsatisfactory way.

[papau]

6. Reagan's associate deputy attorney general and killer of the FCC access rule is now a DU hero?

Granted that by pushing the impeachment of Bush, he may make a few forget his leading the cry for the impeachment of Clinton.

[babylonsister]

9. No, but he does make sense. If you haven't seen it,

Bill Moyers' special on impeachment is worth checking out. I think Mr. Fein is honestly concerned about how and why the Constitution is being shredded, and how to stop it.

[papau]

13. I welcome him to the charge for Bush's impeachment - but I do not trust him. n/t

n/t

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. Fein actually WROTE the Clinton Impeachment papers. At least he's leading the cry for

the psycho's impeachment. That's more than the Democrats are doing.:(

[papau]

12. True - but allow me to continue to dislike and distrust Mr. Fine :-) n/t

:-)

[in_cog_ni_to]

17. Okey-Dokey!

Continue on.:hi:

[Me.]

16. Just Like Turley

Who went after Clinton, guns blazing, who is also after *, these men seem to be more offended by lawbreaking, than their party affiliation would suggest.

[papau]

24. Fein's role in ending the FCC equal access reg's gives him a special place in my memory - and

his lies about Clinton makes him very special.

To go after Bush - despite Fine's lack of ethics and willingness to lie and screw the non-rich -does indeed mean he has a modicum of respect for the Constitution - but it is an easy call given Bush's shredding of our rights.

It does not equate to chasing Clinton over civil suit yestimony that was a misleading of the Court on a non-material matter - meaning something that was not perjury - that results in a bench fine like those given out daily to thousands of lawyers. Or his other day one (Jan 20, 1993) lies that he used as justification for calling for a Clinton impeachment - lies that after a $70 million investigation are shown to be all false.

[Me.]

29. I Agree With You On Most Of This

And the shock value of all these conserves going after * is something else. My take on this is, if they want to go after him, with even more venom than they did Clinton, then I'm all for it.

[The Stranger]

20. Whatever. Fast forward a decade and meet us in the present.

The Nancy is fucking the nation and there is no justification for what she is doing.

[papau]

25. ? - you are saying there is no justification for Nancy's keeping impeachment off the floor? -I agree

that there is no good justification - but there certainly are reasons that may seem good to some.

I see Nancy doing a great job with the herd of cats that she leads - our beef is with the Dems and GOP members that oppose impeachment. I do not see the "victory" we would get if Bush actions are affirmed by a failure of an impeachment vote.

But I disagree with Nancy on her conclusion that just because the votes are not there now, they will never be there. I want the impeachment resolution debated - and then pull back if it is clear there are not the votes to pass. There has to be more than I am seeing to this question.

[Spinzonner]

8. Even if it doesn't rersult in removal from office

It's necessary to expose what's been happening and use the inquiry as a lever to extract that information in ways that might not otherwise be possible.

The Neocon wing of the Republican Party and their Criminal Co-Conspirators need to be outed to permit their party to be cleansed.

And it needs to be a clear public warning of what happens when their is no accountability before it passes from the public consciousness with its short attention span.

[Solly Mack]

18. K/R

[The Stranger]

19. GET OUT OF OUR WAY, NANCY

WE HAVE A REPUBLIC TO SAVE

[nashville_brook]

21. this says it all: she's "threatened the removal of...Conyers...if an impeachment inquiry...opened"

"threatened the removal of Michigan Rep. John Conyers from his chairmanship of the House judiciary committee if an impeachment inquiry were even opened, according to reliable congressional chatter."

i was giving her the benefit of the doubt. no more.

[loudsue]

22. Nancy's position is totally disempowering to the people of this nation.

She, almost single-handedly, is taking this country down a very dangerous road, and it is obvious that we, the people, have been declared invisible in support of our constitutional form of government.

Never in my life time have I witnessed so many state legislatures, county commissions, city councils, and large organizations that have pushed and pleaded so consistently for impeachment. I lived through the Nixon impeachment, and even then, you didn't have all of these legislative bodies clammoring for impeachment.

We did, on the other hand, have masses of people rioting in the streets, creating "people's armies" with guns and molotov coctails, challenging the "establishment" at their places of business, and protesters who were willing to risk getting tear-gassed, and get their heads busted by billy clubs, in order to re-establish rule OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people.

This time, we're trying to do it through our political system (legislatures, commissions & councils, and letters to congress). It's not working, and it just doesn't get their attention. We can no longer do all of this at the ballot box, because our elections have been "privatized".

This Democracy is broken, and Nancy is leading the demolition, because she is SUPPOSED to represent the voice of the opposition. She just rolls over and asks the conservatives to rub her tummy like a no-count watchdog.

:kick:

[Gregorian]

23. I had higher hopes for Nancy Pelosi. I was wrong.

I have a very good bs detector. I thought she was going in with guns blazing.

She's holding Conyers back?! That is bad news.

[Pastiche423]

28. If that is true about her holding Conyers back

then it kind of make sense as to why he became silent on the issue. I do not want to believe he changed his mind.

[Horse with no Name]

26. You can keep Steny n/t