WHO KNEW IMPEACHMENT WAS SO POPULAR?

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/22068

WHO KNEW IMPEACHMENT WAS SO POPULAR?
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-05-02 15:11. Impeachment

By Nick Mottern, www.ConsumersforPeace.org

(Note: This article says that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is blocking impeachment. To ensure accuracy, I called her press office today, May 2, 2007, and asked for the Speaker’s most recent public statement on impeachment. I was told by a press spokesperson that Ms. Pelosi has said impeachment is “off the table” but that the office could not refer me to any public statement on impeachment by Ms. Pelosi. One can reach the Speaker’s office at [phone].)

Last Saturday, April 28, I went to the pro-impeachment protest organized along Route 117 in Mt. Kisco, New York, the town’s busiest business artery. I went expecting that we would stand with our signs that said “Honk for Impeachment” and receive little or no response.

Was I surprised.

I have protested the Iraq War in this same spot, and drivers have responded more and more positively since the election last fall. But the horn blowing prompted by the impeachment signs was truly overwhelming; there were brief silences but very few and very brief. Enthusiasm was not limited to horn blowing, with the warmer weather, windows were down and people shouted encouragement, waved their arms and gave thumbs up. We all were very surprised at what we were witnessing.

snip//

From the sidewalk on Route 117, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in blocking impeachment, is looking more and more out of touch.

A much larger issue obviously is that Ms. Pelosi is saying that Congress will not hold Bush/Cheney accountable for any of the crimes that they have committed, are committing and will commit. She is pulling the Constitution’s most basic teeth of law enforcement and doing so in a very public way. This may be first time in U.S. history that a Speaker of the House has done such a thing. By saying there will be no law enforcement at the highest level in government, she abandons her fundamental sworn responsibilities to the Constution and the people.

more...

[Atman]

1. The NSA has her college orgy pics

Just sayin. There SOMETHING going on making all our leaders scared shitless of these lying criminal bastards...who've admitted to spying on US citizens.

.

[Richard D]

2. Wellstone

as in you will be Wellstoned.

[Double T]

3. I can't understand why the two idiot head honchos in the WH.........

appear to be 'untouchable'. Is everyone in washington, d. c. afraid they might suddenly 'disappear'?

[babylonsister]

4. Your not alone in not understanding, although I think it has

a lot more to do with their looking towards 08 instead of addressing all the bungling this admin has done yesterday and now.

[mloutre]

5. Just my $.02. YMMV. (And in this case, probably will.)

If investigating executive-branch abuses of power with a goal of impeaching Bush, Cheney et al were just a partisan political exercise, a la the Clinton snafu, I'd agree that proceeding with it would be a pointless waste of time and resources.

It's not, though. We're not talking about telling fibs to avoid getting caught with one's britches down here. The current administration has waged a deliberate, systematic campaign of returning power to an imperial presidency -- power that had specifically been taken away from the last imperial presidency in the aftermath of its own impeachment investigations.

There is a growing preponderance of evidence that the Bush White House has treated the Constitution like a meaningless set of vague guidelines that those in power don't have to honor unless it's convenient for them to do so.

Wireless wiretapping of American citizens, rushing to a war of conquest under provably-false pretenses, corporate collusion with big oil and big pharmaceutical companies at the policy level, dismantling of habeas corpus rights in the name of torture in secret overseas prisons, top officials refusing to tell the truth to duly-constituted oversight committees -- the list of potential high crimes and misdemeanors attributable to the highest levels of the executive branch is long, and getting longer every day.

A witch-hunt impeachment campaign for its own sake would indeed be a pointless partisan exercise. But investigation and impeachment as the inevitable outcome of an imperial presidency's hubristic disregard for the Constitution and the core tenets of governmental checks and balances that our democratic republic is built on would not be pointless at all.

Initiating impeachment proceedings against an administration as nakedly corrupt and self-serving as this one is not a partisan exercise -- it's a Constitutional requirement.

Impeaching the Bush administration just for the sake of striking back at its unprecedented imperial arrogance is not the point here. But thoroughly repudiating the Nixonian precedents of untrammeled executive branch power that it has worked so carefully to set back in place is more than just an idealistic goal. It is crucial to restoring the rightful balance of government in this country.

Calling for impeachment proceedings against the imperial presidency that the Bush White House has tried to create for the sake of its own hunger for power is not an exercise. Nor is it optional under the circumstances. It is our necessary duty as citizens under the Constitution of the United States of America.

[underpants]

6. Take a Friday afternoon and impeach both of them

We'll never get the votes to convict them and throw them out of office but for history's sake take a few hours hold a vote and impeach them.

It will also show how to more efficiently run the Congress-not that that hasn't been shown already.

[meldroc]

7. I'm seeing this too.

When I go out to my anti-war vigils, I've made quite a few signs - many of them generic anti-war, but also some impeachment signs.

The impeachment signs are VERY popular. I get a lot of honks, hoots & hollars, thumbs up, waves, peace signs, cries of "YEAH!!! IMPEACH!!!"

Because of the Steve-Jobs-like reality-distortion field in the Beltway, most of the Congresscritters don't really get the magnitude of the anger that's being directed at the Bush administration by regular folks. Just about everyone I know, including most of the Republicans I know, hate Bush. Absolutely hate him. There's still the occasional Kool-Aid drinking Bushie, but those are becoming increasingly rare.