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Forget her "Pledge," She Took an Oath: Why Pelosi is Wrong on Impeachment
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), in an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS News, said impeachment would be "off the table" if Democrats take over the House of Representatives in November, calling it a "waste of time."
She couldn't be more wrong, and most Americans know it.
While Pelosi was responding to a loaded question from Stahl, who couched impeachment in terms of Democrats' supposed desire to seek revenge if they retake Congress, Pelosi, who would become majority leader in a Democratic House, bought into Stahl's argument, saying that she'd be "satisfied" to see the president and vice president spending the remaining two years of their second term as "lame ducks."
What Stahl should have asked Pelosi was whether she thought that President Bush had violated the law and the Constitution, and whether she believed he has committed impeachable offenses.
The answer to that is clearly yes.
Rep. Pelosi must know most of the president's crimes are not
partisan at all. They are crimes against Americans of all stripes, and
against liberty and the Constitution.
Just take the president's
order to the National Security Administration to spy on Americans
without first seeking a warrant. A federal judge in Detroit has already
found that the president violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act--a felony--and the Fourth Amendment. That is an impeachable act,
and one which Democrats and Republicans alike would punish if they
understood the the implications of what the president has done. Given
that the secret FISA court has only rejected a handful of warrant
requests out of over 70,000 made since 1978, the only reason Bush could
have decided to violate the law is that he is doing something so
outrageous he knew the hand-picked, top-security-cleared FISA judges
would have rejected it out of hand.
Or take the signing
statements. This president has used so-called "signing statements" to
render inoperative over 800 laws or parts of laws passed by Congress,
claiming that he has the authority to do so because he is a commander
in chief in time of war (the so-called "War" on Terror). Rep. Pelosi
claims that if she becomes House leader, Democrats will want to pursue
a positive, progressive political agenda, yet this will be clearly
impossible if the president is allowed to simply continue issuing
signing statements invalidating any laws passed by a Democratic
Congress. Signing statements cannot be overridden, and if Democrats
were to attempt to pass legislation outlawing them, Bush could veto
that legislation--or render it inoperative with another signing
statement. The only way to stop this unconstitutional usurpation of the
founding principle of tripartite government is to impeach the president
for blatant abuse of power.
This too, is an issue that
Republicans and Democrats should agree on, for if this president is
permitted to ignore laws passed by the Congress, then subsequent
presidents (perhaps a President Hillary Clinton or Barak Obama?) could
also do it, citing the continuing "War" on Terror, and the Bush
precedent.
Does Nancy Pelosi believe that the president's lies
and deceptions and the conspiracy by his administration to trick the
nation into a disastrous invasion of Iraq is not grounds for
impeachment? Nearly 3000 Americans have died as a result of that
deceit, and nearly 40,000 have suffered grievous wounds, while the US
military has been stretched to the breaking point, leaving the country
unable to respond to genuine threats. Surely the author of this ongoing
national nightmare must be punished, so that future presidents will not
attempt to do the same thing.
These are only some of this administration's crimes. Others include:
*
Bush's role in attacking, and then covering up the attack on former
ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame--a crime
that was committed to discredit Wilson and discourage reporters from
probing more deeply into his revelation that the documents used to
claim Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger were obvious
forgeries, and into who was behind those forgeries in the first place.
*
Bush's authorization of torture as a policy for captives in
Afghanistan, Iraq and in the nebulous, endless and borderless "War" on
Terror. The president, in an act of desperation, has gotten the
currently Republican Congress to ram through a bill granting
retroactive immunity to all those, including himself, who authorized or
engaged in torture, but this should not deter a Democratic Congress
from seeking impeachment for an action that remains a violation of
international law, that places American troops at greater risk, and
that has destroyed America's image around the globe.
* Bush's criminally negligent handling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
*
The rot of corruption in the administration, highlighted by the
Abramoff lobbying scandals, which clearly reach right into the Oval
Office, despite the president’s initial lie that he didn’t know Jack
Abramoff.
* Bush's refusal to testify under oath and on the
record before the 9-11 Commission, and his refusal to provide officials
and documents demanded by the commission regarding what the
administration knew before the attacks and how it responded to what it
knew. This obstructionism by the White House has been called close to
an act of treason by former Sen. Bob Graham, who until the end of 2002
was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and who has said if
he were currently in the House would be the subject of a bill of
impeachment.
Rep. Pelosi may think Americans don't want
impeachment, but, like many Democratic leaders, ' simply out of touch.
Indeed, the congresswoman will find a resolution on impeachment on her
own ballot when she goes home to San Francisco to vote this November (a
resolution that is likely to pass handily). Meanwhile, a new Newsweek
magazine poll finds that fully 51 percent of all Americans believe that
the president should be impeached--more than half of them saying this
should be a priority. That same poll finds that 20 percent of
Republicans think the president should be impeached, with one in four
of those saying it should be a priority for the next Congress.
These
are astonishing figures when you consider that support for impeachment
of President Bill Clinton never got higher than 36 percent, even at the
height of his impeachment process.
Maybe Rep. Pelosi should start listening to the voters, instead of to her campaign strategists.
More
importantly, she and other Democratic—and Republican--members of the
House should recall that oath they took when they assumed office, which
commits them to "support and defend the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
The
Constitution these days is under relentless assault by an enemy in the
White House. Defending it is not a "waste of time" Ms. Pelosi; it is
your sworn duty.
we seem to need to hold our noses written by enemy of the people,
October 28, 2006
when we go to vote. It is high humor to read punishing criminals for their acts is a "waste of time." How in the world did Pelosi get to where she is. Surely San Francisco can do better. Where is Jerry when we NEED him?
Writings 
Forget her "Pledge," She Took an Oath: Why Pelosi is Wrong on Impeachment
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