In Zen Buddhism, there is the idea that while enlightenment can takes years of meditation and discipline, it can also happen in a flash. Suddenly, the mind becomes clear and everything makes sense. In Zen, it’s called satori, which means “kick in the eye.”
I had one of those Monday when a local blog quoted John Nichols of The Nation magazine as saying the impeachment of George W. Bush is “a necessary response to a presidency that so dramatically mismanaged and misguided this nation. If we can’t impeach now, then we can never impeach because I guarantee to you that every president will always tell you that the times are too extraordinary to allow that president to be held to account.”
Of course, it makes perfect sense. I have to admit, I’ve been one of those “practical” people who’s been thinking that, yes, Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney deserve to be impeached and then charged with crimes domestic and international, but it’s more important for Congress to go about cleaning up some of the Bush/Cheney mess and start getting the country back on track.
Impeachment has had a terrible history in my lifetime. In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency to avoid it. Had he not, he almost certainly would have been removed from office and probably indicted. The price of his resignation was a pardon from his successor.
Ronald Reagan should have been impeached. His secret wars in Central America and his secret arms deals with Iran and other means of financing them, were clear usurpations of the power of Congress. Between his personal popularity, Watergate hangover and the weak knees of Congressional Democrats, it never came to pass.
Bill Clinton was impeached. He deserved censure for his misdeeds, but impeaching him was a political abuse of the concept by vindictive Republicans in Congress. Nothing Mr. Clinton did put the republic in danger.
Messrs. Bush and Cheney, as Mr. Nichols points out, are a different story. To not impeach them does harm to the republic, because failure to impeach means their constitutional violations, their imperial grab for power and their gaming of the system of checks and balances will otherwise stand as a precedent and will make it that much easier for a future president to edge our nation closer to a dictatorship.
I did a bit of Googling and found Bill Moyers did a program on impeachment in July with Mr. Nichols and Bruce Fein as guests. (Mr. Fein is a conservative think tanker who wrote the first article of impeachment against Mr. Clinton.) Both Messrs. Nichols and Fein called for Mr. Bush’s impeachment.
Mr. Fein said Mr. Bush was more deserving of impeachment than Mr. Clinton, because, among other things, “He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don’t have any right to know what he’s doing with relation to spying on American citizens… He’s claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.”
Mr. Moyers cited polls taken at the time that said 45 percent of the public supported the impeachment of Mr. Bush and 54 percent supported the impeachment of Mr. Cheney.
It’s true – Republicans in Congress will resist calls for impeachment with all their might. The Democrats’ majority is pretty slim and Democratic leaders are more timid today than they were during Iran-Contra. That shouldn’t be an excuse to be jaded and think that nothing can ever be resolved. (If one thinks that, nothing ever will be resolved.)
You and I may not have the power to effect the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, but we can do this: take a minute and think if you deserve an American government that still functions the way our nation’s founders designed it to function. Is it too much to ask our elected representatives to help us preserve that?
It’s not enough for us to sit back and think, “Oh ho! George Bush will be gone in another 13 months and then remembered and reviled as the worst president in history.” Unless he and Mr. Cheney are called to account for their actions, Mr. Bush very well may not be the worst president in history and the next stage of history may come sooner than any of us would care to think.
Impeachment Now!
In Zen Buddhism, there is the idea that while enlightenment can takes years of meditation and discipline, it can also happen in a flash. Suddenly, the mind becomes clear and everything makes sense. In Zen, it’s called satori, which means “kick in the eye.”
I had one of those Monday when a local blog quoted John Nichols of The Nation magazine as saying the impeachment of George W. Bush is “a necessary response to a presidency that so dramatically mismanaged and misguided this nation. If we can’t impeach now, then we can never impeach because I guarantee to you that every president will always tell you that the times are too extraordinary to allow that president to be held to account.”
Of course, it makes perfect sense. I have to admit, I’ve been one of those “practical” people who’s been thinking that, yes, Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney deserve to be impeached and then charged with crimes domestic and international, but it’s more important for Congress to go about cleaning up some of the Bush/Cheney mess and start getting the country back on track.
Impeachment has had a terrible history in my lifetime. In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency to avoid it. Had he not, he almost certainly would have been removed from office and probably indicted. The price of his resignation was a pardon from his successor.
Ronald Reagan should have been impeached. His secret wars in Central America and his secret arms deals with Iran and other means of financing them, were clear usurpations of the power of Congress. Between his personal popularity, Watergate hangover and the weak knees of Congressional Democrats, it never came to pass.
Bill Clinton was impeached. He deserved censure for his misdeeds, but impeaching him was a political abuse of the concept by vindictive Republicans in Congress. Nothing Mr. Clinton did put the republic in danger.
Messrs. Bush and Cheney, as Mr. Nichols points out, are a different story. To not impeach them does harm to the republic, because failure to impeach means their constitutional violations, their imperial grab for power and their gaming of the system of checks and balances will otherwise stand as a precedent and will make it that much easier for a future president to edge our nation closer to a dictatorship.
I did a bit of Googling and found Bill Moyers did a program on impeachment in July with Mr. Nichols and Bruce Fein as guests. (Mr. Fein is a conservative think tanker who wrote the first article of impeachment against Mr. Clinton.) Both Messrs. Nichols and Fein called for Mr. Bush’s impeachment.
Mr. Fein said Mr. Bush was more deserving of impeachment than Mr. Clinton, because, among other things, “He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don’t have any right to know what he’s doing with relation to spying on American citizens… He’s claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.”
Mr. Moyers cited polls taken at the time that said 45 percent of the public supported the impeachment of Mr. Bush and 54 percent supported the impeachment of Mr. Cheney.
It’s true – Republicans in Congress will resist calls for impeachment with all their might. The Democrats’ majority is pretty slim and Democratic leaders are more timid today than they were during Iran-Contra. That shouldn’t be an excuse to be jaded and think that nothing can ever be resolved. (If one thinks that, nothing ever will be resolved.)
You and I may not have the power to effect the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, but we can do this: take a minute and think if you deserve an American government that still functions the way our nation’s founders designed it to function. Is it too much to ask our elected representatives to help us preserve that?
It’s not enough for us to sit back and think, “Oh ho! George Bush will be gone in another 13 months and then remembered and reviled as the worst president in history.” Unless he and Mr. Cheney are called to account for their actions, Mr. Bush very well may not be the worst president in history and the next stage of history may come sooner than any of us would care to think.
© Mark Floegel 2007