Have Bush and Cheney threatened an aggressive war on Iran? They're both on videotape doing so.
Was
Bush criminally negligent during Hurricane Katrina? He's on videotape
being warned of the danger. He's on videotape claiming he was never
warned.
Have Bush and Cheney used unlawful detentions and
torture? They and their staffs have defended these policies on video
and in writing. The practice of detaining without charge and the
numerous victims of it are undisputed public knowledge. Evidence of
torture is voluminous and indisputable and includes public photographs.
Did Bush and Cheney intentionally mislead the Congress and the
public into the invasion and occupation of Iraq? They are on videotape
doing so, and the evidence that they knew exactly what
they were doing is overwhelming.
Failure
to pursue impeachment simply means nobody gets impeached. Announcing
that impeachment is off the table means nobody gets impeached, nothing
gets done that the President doesn't want done, and the President
continues to violate the law and probably escalates his abuses. At
least, this seems to be the lesson from both the presidency of Ronald
Reagan and that of George W. Bush.
Going into the 100th
Congress in January of 1987, Speaker of the House Jim Wright announced
that impeachment was off the table. "That is the last thing I wanted to
do," Wright said. "Ronald Reagan had only two years left in his term. I
was not going to allow a procedure that would lead to his impeachment
in his final year in office." Instead, Wright allowed dangerous
precedents to be set, brutal crimes to be committed, and the Bush
presidential dynasty to be established. Some deal.
Wright's
House held hearings on Iran-Contra, a scandal involving clear
impeachable offenses, but it did so with two hands tied behind its
back. This is how Lou Dubose and Jake Bernstein describe it in "Vice:
Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency":
"The
Democrats began with a disadvantage that resulted from their deference
to the executive. Wright had lost leverage by making it clear that
impeachment was not an option. The committee ignored important
evidence, including recordings of Reagan's phone conversations with
foreign leaders involved in third-party funding [of illegal activities
in Nicaragua]. While his expertise was unquestioned, [Lee] Hamilton's
desire to be fair, and his middle-of-the-road orientation, made him an
easy mark for Republican House members, who wanted the committee to
fail. Hamilton worried about the potential damage to the government
from an activist investigation that would lead to impeachment. 'The
real question was whether Reagan would be able to govern,' he recalls
today.
"But it wasn't enough for the Republicans that the
Democrats had declared that they would not pursue impeachment. Their
goal was to prevent any damage to the Reagan administration….And
[Congressman Dick] Cheney had a broader agenda: to ensure that the
committee would in no way diminish the powers of the executive branch….
"The
first fight was over how long the hearings would last. The Republicans
wanted it over quickly – 'like tomorrow,' one former staffer jokes.
'Did I know Dick wanted to shorten it? Yes, I knew that,' says
Hamilton. The Democrats, fearful of being labeled overly partisan for
extending the proceedings into the 1988 election year, agreed to an
artificial ten-month deadline to complete the investigation and issue a
report. It was an invitation to the administration to stall while
simultaneously burying the committee under mountains of useless
information…."
Toward the end, the committee turned up new
information and staffers wanted to continue, but Dick Cheney was
opposed. Cheney also championed conditions for Col. Oliver North's
testimony that included granting him immunity, not deposing him
beforehand, limiting the length of the testimony, barring recalling him
later, and allowing him to produce requested documents less than a week
before testifying. In short, Cheney led the effort that saved Reagan
from impeachment.
Jim Wright led the Democratic surrender,
offering the same arguments that Speaker Nancy Pelosi offers today. As
a result, the Democrats lost the next elections badly, many future
members of the George W. Bush administration went unpunished, and Jim
Wright was rewarded by Cheney who accused him of ethics violations and
hounding him until he resigned in disgrace.
Cheney's mission,
then and now, was to transfer powers from the Congress to the White
House. He has, of course, been able to vastly expand on his successes
in that regard during the past six years. Leading the Democratic
surrender for the past year has been Pelosi. When she announced in May
of 2006 that impeachment was "off the table," Bush and Cheney knew that
nothing could touch them, all threats would be bluffs, and criminal
activities could be escalated with no repercussions. Did Bush and
Cheney thank Pelosi for her consideration? No, they proceeded to fire
and hire US attorneys based on their willingness to press false charges
against Democrats. And they escalated the war.
Those who do not learn from history are condemned to lead the Democratic Party.
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