Lead or Get Out of the Way
Jul 29th, 2007 at 1:57 pm by Susie
The burgeoning movement for impeachment is a rational response to a moment when polls tell us that roughly three-quarters of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. This Administration has not just let Americans down; it has frightened them. A great many understand, intuitively or explicitly, that we are experiencing a constitutional crisis and that impeachment proceedings are the proper tonic. Unfortunately, key Democrats continue to mistake the medicine for the disease. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still keeps impeachment “off the table”; she and her advisers fear that if they allow Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers to open impeachment hearings, it will rally the Republican base in defense of Bush and Cheney.
History suggests she’s wrong: Opposition parties that have pursued impeachment in a high-minded manner have, in every instance, maintained or improved their position in Congress and have usually won the presidency in the next election. Pelosi should step out of the way and let her colleagues restore the rule of law. More than a dozen have shown their desire to do so by co-sponsoring Representative Dennis Kucinich’s articles of impeachment against Cheney.
Instead of impeachment, let’s debate an amnesty - should we promise not to seek the death penalty against certain individuals, should the investigations find that they, for example, conspired to commit torture resulting in death?
The answer isn’t important. I just want the question debated.
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R: 9/11
D: 7/04