For a while there, I was getting daily "Impeach Bush" email updates. I didn't ask to be on the list and when my requests to be removed were ignored, I added the source to my SPAM list. It's not that I think George W. Bush doesn't qualify for impeachment. I'm with Chalmers Johnson in understanding that this President has "of course, flagrantly violated his oath of office, which requires him 'to protect and defend the constitution'...(that) among the 'high crimes and misdemeanors' that, under other political circumstances, would surely constitute the Constitutional grounds for impeachment are these":
(T)he President and his top officials pressured the CIA to put together a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's nuclear weapons that both the administration and the Agency knew to be patently dishonest. They then used this false NIE to justify and American war of aggression
(After launching this invasion,) the administration unilaterally reinterpreted international and domestic law to permit the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.. at Guantanimo Bay, and at other secret locations around the world.
Nothing in the Constitution, least of all the commander-in-chief clause, permits the president to commit felonies. Nonetheless, within days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush had signed a secret executive order authorizing a new policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the CIA is allowed to kidnap terrorist suspects anywhere on Earth and transfer them to prisons in countries…where torture is a normal practice, or to secret CIA prisons outside the United States where Agency operatives themselves do the torturing.
On the home front, despite the post-9/11 congressional authorization of new surveillance powers to the administration, its officials chose to ignore these and, on its own initiative, undertook extensive spying on American citizens without obtaining the necessary judicial warrants and without reporting to Congress on this program. These actions are prima-facie violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (and subsequent revisions) and of Amendment IV of the Constitution.
These alone constitute more than adequate grounds for impeachment, while hardly scratching the surface.
Underlining mine. Yes, indeed, George W. Bush is a really, really inept and damaging President, probably the worst in our nation's history. His shocking disregard for the rule and spirit of law will be a central element in the story of his role in history...along with his poor critical-thinking skills, his lack of actual leadership qualities, his unsound instincts (ignored months of 9/11 warnings, missed the import of the Katrina warnings - something we actually have on tape, continually stokes fear and negative instincts in the American people, etc.), his catastrophically bad decision-making, his deeply-flawed character judgments, and what appears to be his lifelong dishonesty at a cellular level. And that's just my short list.
So, it must be profoundly frustrating for pro-impeachment activists to deal with how difficult it has been to kindle their particular fire, even under people like me.
In Salon’s "Why Bush Hasn’t been Impeached" (subscription), Gary Kamiya cites multiple "factors -- the sacrosanct status of war, the public's complicity in an irrational demonstration of raw power...
“Congress, the media and most of the American people have yet to turn decisively against Bush because to do so would be to turn against some part of themselves.
"…Bush’s warmongering spoke to something deep in our national psyche…To impeach Bush would force us to directly confront our national core of violent self-righteousness – to come to terms with it, to understand it and reject it. And we’re not ready to do that…to turn decisively against Bush…would be to turn against some part of (our)selves."
...(and) the loss of respect for law, logic, and memory -- (that) have created a
situation in which it is widely accepted that Bush's lies about Iraq
(are) not impeachable or even that scandalous, but merely a matter of
policy."
To which I say, uh... yes ...and no.
First, I think Americans are understandably averse to launching the impeachment process at a time when it might distract us from our greater moral responsibility to clean up the hellish messes we've got going in Iraq and Afghanistan and in New Orleans and elsewhere at home.
I also think we have to understand that Newt Gingrich's merry band of
Republicans diminished the seriousness of impeachment when they used it
against Bill Clinton. (Read John Dean's Conservatives Without Conscience - Most of those Republicans didn't even believe in it themselves! They were just following marching orders.)
But I think - I hope - that the major reason that even people like me are not focused on impeachment is because we realize - or at least sense - that George Bush's illegal behavior is as much symptom as cause. No president gets to do the kind of damage he has done in a system that works. In other words, the problems we need to face are much, much bigger than George W. Bush. As Al Gore said in a recent conversation (5.25.07) related to his new book, Assault on Reason -
"It's too easy...to simply blame President Bush and Vice President Cheney. We have free speech, a free press, a Congress, independent courts, checks and balances - we are all responsible for the decisions that are made in this country."
Yes, Bush is us. (And for those who say, "Hey, he ain't me!" I say, "Democracy isn't about I, it's a 'we' thing.") But he's showing us much more than our inclination to war or revenge. This is, after all, a presidency born of a breakdown in our most sacred collective act: voting for president.
American democracy is in the throes of systemic breakdown.
The level of our national discourse is a disgrace.
Voter turnout? We rank 139th out of 172 countries. Aren't you proud?
A large percentage of the news media - especially broadcast, where the vast majority of Americans get their information - fails us daily.
Our elected officials in Washington are so reliant on big bucks that they find it hard to think straight or do their jobs, as in providing serious oversight and demanding accountability.
We are not educating our children well.
Our health care has severe problems. We're 39th in infant mortality. Anybody got a good excuse for this?
How much more needs to go badly before people demand some serious across-the-board fixing?! Well, more than fixing, actually - more like fast-track evolution.
Which brings me to my best possible spin on the current Bush presidency.
Years ago, I heard a parable that charmed me. It went like this:
An angel is told that s/he is being sent to be born as a human on earth. The angel, devastated at the notion of being unable to see God, makes this one request, "Please, please, if I have to be a human, grant me life where I never take my eyes off God for a second." Wish granted, the angel is born as God's greatest enemy on earth."
For the last six+ years- ever since that shameful metaphor in Florida - I have been contemplating this version -
Just before birth, an immature soul makes one fervent request, "Pleeeze, pleeeze, pleeeze - I wanna be famous! Make me the most unforgettable President ever! I want to be unforgettable! " Wish granted, George W. Bush is born in a position to become the Worst USA President Ever... a wake-up call to the American people to begin treating their country with the respect and care it deserves...to start acting like grown-ups, not democracy's babies."
But of course, it's our choice. American renaissance - taking the next evolutionary step in our democracy, where people demand more power over multiple essential systems... or continuing downward spiral into powerlessness?
This is a test of us. Not George Bush.