Mistakes? We’re talking about crimes here; not mistakes!

Feingold claims to be concerned about the “overuse” of impeachment. That’s rich! Because Republicans clearly misused impeachment to go after President Clinton on a minor issue, Feingold is willing to let Bush and Cheney slip away with crimes that have led to the pointless deaths of almost 4000 Americans and over 600,000 innocent Iraqis? What is this man thinking? He’s comparing Clinton’s lie about a marital infidelity with Bush’s ordering of torture? With his authorizing of kidnappings and secret international gulags? With the elimination of the 700-year-old foundation freedom from illegal incarceration known as habeas corpus? With massive secret illegal spying on Americans?


It’s hard to believe these words are even coming from a man who only a year ago was out front calling for censure of the president by the Senate.

 

If this president and vice president are not prime impeachment bait, Feingold and his colleagues should just vote out a Constitutional Amendment removing the impeachment clause, because it will never be used again.

Feingold tries to duck his leadership responsibility by claiming he has “a specific role to play as a sworn, impartial juror should an impeachment be tried in the Senate.” That, however, is nonsense. In no way does the Constitution state, nor did the Founders ever imagine, that senators in an impeachment trial would be impartial in the way that petit jurors in a criminal trial must be impartial. There is no jury selection process at which biased senators are removed from the trial. All senators, with all their political baggage, are automatically part of the “jury.” And they are understood to be political actors. Some would no doubt be swayed by the arguments made at trial by the House prosecutors at such a trial, if they open their minds, but they are understood to be political animals. Feingold is clearly being disingenuous here.


He has a role to play. As someone who understands the grievous crimes of this administration, Senator Feingold should be pressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stop blocking impeachment. He should be following the honorable and courageous path being paved by California Senator Barbara Boxer, who told the Speaker, “I don’t think you can take anything off the table, because, in fact, the Constitution does not permit us to take these things off the table," and who warned that “this is as close as we’ve ever come to dictatorship."


One would have thought Feingold would be making the same charge, but something has turned this once honorable and courageous Senator to moral and intellectual mush.


I remember, when Sen. Paul Wellstone was tragically killed in a plane crash, thinking, “Well, at least we have Russ Feingold.”


That was then. This is now. What would Sen. Wellstone be doing today? Certainly he wouldn’t be ducking his responsibility to stand up in defense of the Constitution as Feingold is doing. He’d probably be traveling the country, giving rousing speeches at impeachment events.


Russ, wake up! You can’t fight Bush and Cheney with bills, and they’ve made it clear you can’t investigate them with committees and subpoenas. These two power-crazed criminals and Constitution wreckers are thumbing their noses at you and all your colleagues on both sides of the aisle. They’re laughing right now at your pathetic cop-out.




We who are pushing for impeachment would like to have you on board, fighting for the Constitution with us, as you pledged to do when you took your oath of office, but if you are going to cave and play the cynical and cowardly game of Pelosi and the gang of corrupt leaders of your party, we’ll just have to do it without you.

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