|
McClellan's Dish
Impeachment is Back
on the Table
By Dave Lindorf
The most powerful leader
in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and
help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White
House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the
klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly
exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House:
Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It
was not true.
I had unknowingly passed
along false information. And five of the highest ranking
officials in the administration were involved in my doing
so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President's chief
of staff, and the President himself.
--Excerpt from Scott
McClellan's forthcoming book "What Happened"
(Public Affairs Books, due out in April 2008)
11/22/07 "Counterpunch"
-- -- With that one little statement, released on the Public
Affairs Books website this week, all excuses for not impeaching
President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention
indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution
while in office), have evaporated.
Here is rock-solid evidence from
a man who, as press secretary, was privy to the inner workings
of the White House, of a vile conspiracy involving the two top
men in the Bush/Cheney administration, as well as their top
three staffpeople, to expose the identity of an important CIA
undercover operative, Valerie Plame, and then, when caught, to
obstruct a criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick
Fitzgerald, into that crime.
Forget for a moment the
administration's other high crimes and misdemeanors and acts of
bribery and treason, though many, like defying laws passed by
the Congress, or violating the Nuremburg Charter, are surely far
more egregious. This particular set of crimes--conspiracy,
obstruction of justice, lying, and of course the underlying
crime of abuse of power and perhaps treason (since Plame's
responsibility as a high-rankiing CIA operative was preventing
the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, particularly
in the Middle East!)--is serious enough.
There is no way that American
democracy can continue to survive, even in its current truncated
form, if the Congress continues to duck this issue and pretend
that it has "more important things to do," as Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and her retinue of "leaders" in the House have continued
to claim for an entire year in control of the Congress.
To keep impeachment "off the
table," knowing that the president and vice president brazenly
lied to the American people and to the Special Counsel's office
about such a serious offense, is to make a mockery of the
Constitution and the law.
Bush and Cheney must be
impeached at this point if only to save school districts across
the nation the cost of having to buy all new American history
and civics texts, revised so as to remove all discussion of the
notion of Constitutional checks and balances and the word
"impeachment."
It is of course possible that
the political reality is that Republicans in Congress have
become such an antidemocratic conglomeration of authoritarian
yes-men that they would defend their political leaders no matter
what their crimes, and that thus impeachment would be a dead
end, either in the House or certainly in the Senate. This,
however, is no excuse for not calling the president and vice
president to account in impeachment hearings in the House, where
Democrats have a solid majority.
An impeachment hearing before
the House Judiciary Committee, with full subpoena power granted
to that committee, would lead to revelations and exposures far
beyond that of Scott McClellan's, though putting McClellan under
oath on national TV in such a hearing promises to be as
enlightening and entertaining as was the testimony in 1974
before the same panel by Nixon White House attorney John Dean.
The critical importance of such
hearings to the future of American democracy, and to public
understanding of the nature of the coup that has been
undermining that democracy should be obvious. It wouldn't matter
what the vote was following such hearings. Certainly articles of
impeachment would be voted out of the committee and sent to the
floor of the House. Almost as certainly, the House would end up
having to support those articles. So Bush and Cheney would at
least stand impeached, probably with at least some Republican's
voting for impeachment. They would probably also be forced, like
President Clinton before them, to stand trial in the Senate--if
Republicans didn't first succeed in convincing them to resign to
spare their party a disaster at the polls next November.
Certainly it's possible that
proponents of conviction in the Senate would not be able to
convince the 16 or 17 Republican necessary to win a conviction
and removal from office, but it wouldn't matter at that point.
The Bush administration would stand condemned for all time as a
gang of criminals and usurpers.
It's worth noting that following
Clinton's impeachment and trial, which failed to remove him from
office, the Oval Office has been off-limits to unchaperoned
interns, and it is likely to be a long time before felatio is
re-enacted under the Oval Office desk. Similar action against
Bush and Cheney would make future Constitutional crimes equally
unlikely for the same reason, even without conviction.
This would be even more true if
Special Counsel Fitzgerald were to do his duty, as he clearly
should, and reopen his Plame investigation with an indictment of
Cheney, and with the naming of Bush, like Nixon before him, as
an "unindicted co-conspirator."
For starters, Pelosi must take
this moment to declare that impeachment is "back on the table."
Dave Lindorff is the author
of
Killing Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. His n book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage Press.
Lindorff's newest book is "The
Case for Impeachment", co-authored by Barbara Olshansky.
He can be reached at:
dlindorff@mindspring.com
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
