Impeach Bush! (Or Not)
In the latest Newsweek poll, a substantial number of Americans -- as many as 51 percent, maybe, depending on what the question actually was -- said Bush should be impeached.
Of course, there are no legitimate articles of impeachment, despite many attempts. That last time I looked at impeachbush.org. This time let's take a quick look at impeachbush.tv.
They have only three, as opposed to the 20 on org.
So let's go through them quickly.
The first one flat-out lies. It is based on the notion that "[o]n March 19, 2003, George W. Bush invaded the sovereign country of Iraq in direct defiance of the United Nations Security Council," and that this was a violation of the UN Charter, and thus a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The problem is, it never happened. The UN Security Council never stated, in any way, that the U.S. was not allowed to invade. Not much more to say about that.
So, the second article. It says Bush lied and did other terrible things and therefore "subverted the principles of democracy." Except, of course, they do not give a single verifiable example of Bush "subverting the principles of democracy." Making mistakes, yes; intentionally lying, no. Indeed, and some of their examples are, again, flat-out lies, like accusing Bush of "[s]tating that 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' in his State of the Union Address after being told by the CIA that this was untrue and that the supporting documents were forged."
On the contrary, we know that his statement was not based on those forged documents (note that they left out the fact, from their quote, that Bush was referring to British intel, which we know from the Butler Report predated the known existence of the forged documents), and the CIA's statements had nothing to do with the British intel.
Similarly, they accuse Bush of "[r]epeatedly ordering the NSA to place illegal wiretaps on American citizens without a court order from FISA." This is question-begging, since the court has not ruled it to be illegal, and it is very arguable. This is something that is properly decided only by the Supreme Court, and it is proper to impeach him over it only if the Court rules against him and he then continues the practice.
They also accuse Bush of retaliating against whistle-blowers, which -- even if true, and it's not -- has nothing to do with democracy. He's the Executive, and has every right to fire whom he wants, when he wants, unless it is in order to commit a crime (such as firing an official to coverup a crime in an official investigation, which is obstruction of justice, and is not the case here).
So, on to the third. Bush has "threatened the security of the American people" by putting us into the war in Iraq, and so on. This breaks down on two fronts. First, most of the items listed happened before the 2004 election, and the people of the U.S., knowing what happened, still voted to re-elect Bush (if you happen to find the "popular vote" interesting, Bush got more votes than anyone in U.S. history, and got more than 50 percent for the first time since George H.W. Bush in 1988).
Second, Congress approved (in large part, if not in whole) of all of the items on the list, except the last. For Congress to impeach based on something it approved of makes no sense.
As to the final item in the list, there is nothing in the NPT that disallows the proposing of tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons. That's another lie.
Once again, there is not a single reasonable draft article of impeachment against Bush. And three-for-three, all of these draft articles are based on lies, in whole or in significant part.
Of course, there are no legitimate articles of impeachment, despite many attempts. That last time I looked at impeachbush.org. This time let's take a quick look at impeachbush.tv.
They have only three, as opposed to the 20 on org.
So let's go through them quickly.
The first one flat-out lies. It is based on the notion that "[o]n March 19, 2003, George W. Bush invaded the sovereign country of Iraq in direct defiance of the United Nations Security Council," and that this was a violation of the UN Charter, and thus a violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The problem is, it never happened. The UN Security Council never stated, in any way, that the U.S. was not allowed to invade. Not much more to say about that.
So, the second article. It says Bush lied and did other terrible things and therefore "subverted the principles of democracy." Except, of course, they do not give a single verifiable example of Bush "subverting the principles of democracy." Making mistakes, yes; intentionally lying, no. Indeed, and some of their examples are, again, flat-out lies, like accusing Bush of "[s]tating that 'Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' in his State of the Union Address after being told by the CIA that this was untrue and that the supporting documents were forged."
On the contrary, we know that his statement was not based on those forged documents (note that they left out the fact, from their quote, that Bush was referring to British intel, which we know from the Butler Report predated the known existence of the forged documents), and the CIA's statements had nothing to do with the British intel.
Similarly, they accuse Bush of "[r]epeatedly ordering the NSA to place illegal wiretaps on American citizens without a court order from FISA." This is question-begging, since the court has not ruled it to be illegal, and it is very arguable. This is something that is properly decided only by the Supreme Court, and it is proper to impeach him over it only if the Court rules against him and he then continues the practice.
They also accuse Bush of retaliating against whistle-blowers, which -- even if true, and it's not -- has nothing to do with democracy. He's the Executive, and has every right to fire whom he wants, when he wants, unless it is in order to commit a crime (such as firing an official to coverup a crime in an official investigation, which is obstruction of justice, and is not the case here).
So, on to the third. Bush has "threatened the security of the American people" by putting us into the war in Iraq, and so on. This breaks down on two fronts. First, most of the items listed happened before the 2004 election, and the people of the U.S., knowing what happened, still voted to re-elect Bush (if you happen to find the "popular vote" interesting, Bush got more votes than anyone in U.S. history, and got more than 50 percent for the first time since George H.W. Bush in 1988).
Second, Congress approved (in large part, if not in whole) of all of the items on the list, except the last. For Congress to impeach based on something it approved of makes no sense.
As to the final item in the list, there is nothing in the NPT that disallows the proposing of tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons. That's another lie.
Once again, there is not a single reasonable draft article of impeachment against Bush. And three-for-three, all of these draft articles are based on lies, in whole or in significant part.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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