Impeachment? How about tar and feathering? Or better yet, let’s draw and quarter Bush like Mel Gibson at the end of “Braveheart.” Oh well, since those solutions are not possible (sigh!), let’s look at impeachment.
The anger against George W. Bush and his henchman runs very deep; why else would 60% of the electorate repudiate them so completely. No one is angrier than I am with Bush. I am furious at the Iraq war and the bucket of lies he fed us so he could conduct it. I believe that he is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and would like nothing better than seeing him taken to prison with ankle cuffs and handcuffs. I am sick to death at his self-satisfied smirk, his hubris, and his patronizing tone, his verbal gaffes and even his Texan accent. (Have you ever wondered why his younger brother, the Governor of Florida, does not have a Texas accent?) I turn off the radio and TV when I see his face, and my partner even tears out his picture from the newspaper because the mere sight of him can touch off a diatribe. But even so, I do not think we should waste our resources and the time we have before the presidential election of 2008.
Revenge is sweet, and the Democratic party is dancing in the streets today. It takes a lot to get the electorate angry enough to stop political abuse. But once the elation settles down, we have to consider what we want to do and what is possible.
51% of the Senate is Democratic but that means that 49% are Republicans. Getting any liberal legislation through will be difficult because the votes tend to go down the party line. Even if legislation goes through the House easily, it can be tied up in the Senate or vetoed by the president. We will not have the votes for an override. In practical terms, it means that the Democrats have their hands tied. The president can tie us up.
The question of impeachment is more complicated. Articles of impeachment are brought by the House, which now is firmly in the Democrats column, 226 to 196 for the GOP.
Even though we CAN impeach him, the question is, SHOULD we? During the Clinton impeachment, the country was tied up in knots. The country virtually came to a standstill. If it did nothing else, it prevented Clinton from accomplishing many of the goals he had set for his administration.
If we impeach Bush, what will happen to the important legislation we want to pass? In a word, would it be worth it to impeach him? Will revenge be as sweet as actually giving people working at the bottom of the scale an increase in the minimum wage or bringing the drug prices down for the elderly?
The minority leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is likely to be named speaker of the House. She has already state unequivocally that impeachment is off the table. This is likely to set off a firestorm from the Left but I believe that it is more important for us to do the right thing than to BE right.
The American people have spoken through this election; they are tired of the corruption, graft, and hijacking of the economy to finance this ill-conceived war. To lead the country and to convince the voters that we are more capable, honest, and efficacious than the GOP, we must ACT rather than react.
Bush is not scared of impeachment; it is a long and nasty process and at the end, the worse than can come of it for him is to make a circus of his administration and cost him some lawyer bills. To someone who is as wealthy as he is, it will be like swatting away mosquitoes. In fact, I wonder if he isn’t expecting to be impeached and rather looking forward to it since if the Democrats impeach him, it will immobilize them while he focuses on foreign policy, that is, his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Consider the civil liberties, like habeas corpus that we must win back. Think of the homeless; of the hungry, of our impoverished people in the poorest parts of this country. Think of the funding that is going to finance wars that could be invested in college, universities, training programs, high schools and after-school programs.
I hate to let him off the hook but I think of him as the political equivalent of OJ: He will be out there playing golf or fishing, in his retirement. Heaven knows he won’t be a highly desirable speaker the way Bill Clinton is, but we have too many priorities that outweigh the desire to slap him on the wrist.
