Why I Believe Bush Must GoMcGovern believes that it's unlikely that impeachment will ever happen, and Jack McCafferty asked viewers on CNN why they thought impeachment wouldn't happen.
Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse.
By George McGovern | Sunday, January 6, 2008
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
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Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.
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In addition to the shocking breakdown of presidential legal and moral responsibility, there is the scandalous neglect and mishandling of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.
Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.
As former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, wrote two years ago, "it wasn't until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)---and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country's laws---that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate.... A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law---and repeatedly violates the law---thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."
Can't say I really disagree with any of that.
I'm watching the primary returns tonight and it occurs to me that perhaps...maybe...finally...people have woken up.
And I have some hope.
2 comments:
I have to say that the voter turnout so far and the extensive interest in this campaign actually makes me think people *have* been paying attention at least enough to unite the country finally AGAINST Bush. I feel quite patriotic lately. Go American public!
And then there are other days....
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