Two hundred and thirty years ago brave men seeking freedom from an oppressive King converged on Philadelphia. Jefferson and company were well read; open to other ideas; and showed a willingness to change their minds when presented withh new information.They debated their philosophies and prepared a business plan for democracy. An organizational chart and the policies and procedures were created to manage our country. Each branch has clearly definded roles and responsiblities.
Like risk managers they anticipated the damages if there were not clear separation of powers.
It was as if they divined this moment in our history.
The current adminstration admonished anyone who did not agree with them. Or worse they were labeled unpatriotic and emboldend the enemy. The only enemy that was emoldened resides in the White House. Before the election, American citizens were afraid to discuss the failings of this administration out of fear of retribution."
Actions speak louder than words. American citizens sent a very clear message to this adminstration. "You are not a king and we are no longer afraid of you." They voted most of the folks who supported this President out of office.
A mere four days after the election, a group of concerned citizens, including yours truly, gathered at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to discuss impeachment of the vice president and the president. Radical stuff.
Before the discussion began, I struggled with where I stood on this issue. My practical inclination was why bother? Georgie Boy's daddy would find a means of getting him off the hook. The country is a mess. Time and resources should be committed to cleaning up the mess he created.
After listening to the speakers such as Cindy Sheehan and seeing the Veterans, I thought, how can we not?
Madame Pelosi does not have the authority to take impeachment off the table. This is not like the coveted voluntary sex act between two consenting adults. If Georgie boy's conduct does not fall under the categories of treason and/or high crime or misdemeanor I do not know what does. When an employee engages in misconduct or shows incompetence, an employer has procedures to rehab or rid the company of the corporate problem. If you or I lied and performed this poorly, our employers would not keep paying us.
Our founders gave WE THE PEOPLE, citizen employers, the mechanism to deal with a problem member of the executive branch. It's called Impeachment. There is plenty of evidence our citizentry can stomach a real impeachment proceeding.
Like a new manager taking over a division, a thorough assessment is mandatory before making any changes. How can the DEMs take our country in a new direction without investigating how the country ended up in its current state?
Impeachment hearings are the procedures available for Congress to perform their assessment and employee evaluation.
Yesterday was the beginning. The next step is writing to the folks that you just put in office; contact the MSM; and by all means sign the petition at Impeach for change.
Impeachment is mandatory in reclaiming our Constitution and Country.
1 comment:
I was at the same event in Philadelphia on Veteran's Day, and was most impressed by speaker Elizabeth Holtzman. Holtzman has written a painstakingly clear book “The Impeachment of George W. Bush” in which she lays out exactly why impeachment is absolutely necessary. She was on the House Judiciary Committee investigating Nixon during Watergate – before that she was a prosecutor here in Brooklyn, so she understands both how impeachment works and how to gather evidence and prepare a case.
While pundits and pols and know-it-alls tell us all the reasons why impeachment won’t work or shouldn’t be attempted, the reality under our Constitution is that Congress has no choice except to start the investigations. Bush’s lies repeatedly violate his Presidential oath to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Exhibit A: Bush admits to not obeying the FISA laws. This is a felony as well as an impeachable offense – a president cannot choose which laws he’s going to obey and which ones he won’t. Exhibit B: by lying about Iraq’s WMD’s and supposed ties to Al-Qaeda and 9/11, Bush misled the Congress and the American people into supporting his war of choice. Congress will be in violation of its duties to provide accountability and oversight if they don’t investigate these lies, and it’s not as if there isn’t a paper trail here.
Holtzman said in Philadelphia that the old questions they asked about Nixon (originally raised by her colleague on the Judiciary Committee Republican Howard Baker) apply to Bush as well. Think about all the administration’s lies about Iraq, all the ignored or deliberately cherry picked intelligence, and ask the questions What did the President know, When did he know it, and (a new one), What did the President do with the knowledge he did have once he had it? Richard Clarke and others told him Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and that Saddam and Bin Laden hated each other. Multiple intelligence sources, including George thanks for the medal Tenet told him the documents “proving” the Niger uranium sale were completely worthless and unreliable. What did George do? He lied to us and he lied to Congress, he lied in the 2003 State of the Union speech, and he’s lying now. He and his neocon PNAC bastards wanted the Iraq war long before 9/11. This is not news to us, but we can’t let him get away with it. It is impeachable.
Here’s what has to happen: you have to buy Holzman’s book and read it (I am not finished with it), but you also have to go to your member of Congress now and demand that he or she exercise vigorous oversight and accountability once they get back to work. If the new Congress really and truly performs the oversight and accountability functions our system requires as a vital component of our checks and balances, then the atmosphere will be more conducive to the beginning the investigations that, based on the evidence, will lead to impeachment.
One last thing – I want to push for a progressive agenda as much as anyone and this is no time for us to back down on any progressive issue. However, Holtzman stresses that impeachment only works if it’s done on a bipartisan basis. Republicans (at least some of them) hate the idea of a lying, incompetent President as much as any Progressive does. We can’t be motivated by partisanship or by revenge, although not doing so is very difficult for me I admit. We have to put our Constitution and our citizenship first and reach out to Republicans to pressure their reps to support accountability and oversight. Once we do that, then we start talking Impeachment to the Conyers committee and our own reps and we never, ever give up.
No future President can be allowed to see Bush get away with this. This bastard has so much blood on his hands. We can put Democrats in power but we will not have our country back until we have saved the Constitution from what Bush and his supporters, including many Dems, have done to it. Support Impeachment. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition
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