Ending The War vs Impeachment : Which do you Choose?

There is a dramatic and growing split between rank and file Democrats (particularly those of an activist bent such as those on DKos or DU) and Democratic politicians in Washington who have basically placed Impeachment "Off the Table." Many Democrats have been frustrated and even outraged by this - but have they truly listened to the reasons why?

From the Blogger Conference Call

Nancy Pelosi: I made a decision a few years ago, or at least one year ago, that impeachment was something that we could not be successful with and that would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a record of our priorities and their short-comings,

Pelosi statement here alludes to a point of mine, which bears repeating.

Impeachment and Removal, though frankly necessary, is not yet a possibility except as a pointless exercise in vainglory. Just as failed subpoenas have further emboldened the rampant lawlessness of this Presidency, a failed Impeachment Vote or even a failure to Remove in the Senate would make Bush nigh unto a God. All powerful. Unstoppable.

Senator Feingold, who at one point stood virtually alone on the issue of Censure, has also tamped down Impeachment Expectations in his own DKos Diary

I believe that the President and Vice President may well have committed impeachable offenses. But with so many important issues facing this country and so much work to be done, I am concerned about the great deal of time multiple impeachment trials would take away from the Congress working on the problems of the country. The time it would take for the House to consider articles of impeachment, and for the Senate to conduct multiple trials, would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to do what it was elected to do – end the war and address some of the other terrible mistakes this Administration has made over the past six and a half years.

As could be expected Feingold's position was not well received.

Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold wrote a diary on this site recently...a smoke screen for why he was being a wimp and not taking the will of the people with him when he had to vote on the get-out-of-Iraq bill. He wanted HIS cake and to eat it, too.

Some have pointed out that Feingold stood shoulder to shoulder with Republicans intent on Impeaching Bill Clinton.

At issue was a motion by Senator Robert Byrd (D - W.V.) to dismiss all charges against the President. The vote was 44 to 56. 44 Democrats voted yes. 55 Republicans and one Democrat voted no.

55 Republicans. And one Democrat. Just one. Russ Feingold.

Regardless of whether you feel that Feingold is either gutless or some form of hypocrite, it should be noted that he does have a point when he essentially says there are bigger fish to fry than Bush.

There is for example, The War Occupation.

This week the Senate staged a dramatic All-Nighter in an attempt to break a Republican Filibuster over an Iraq Redeployment Timetable. Despite several hints that Republicans such as Pete Dominici, George Voinovich, John Warner, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar just might be willing to finally budge and break with the President on Iraq - only Senators Snowe, Hagel, Susan Collins and Gordon Smith actually did by voting to end the Filibuster against Levin-Reed.

(It should also be noted that the only Democrat voting against ending the Filibuster - was Harry Reid for procedural reasons so that he could bring the measure up again in the future. And of course, Lieberman.)

Even if these 8 Republican Senators, including Collins and Smith, have all made it to the fence and just might bolt this upcoming September - it's still not quite enough to have the Veto Proof Super-Majority they need to override the President on Iraq - but it's close.

Four Republicans jumped the Shark, after the August recess and Reid's tabling of the measure until September - even more are likely, but what remains to be seen is whether it will be enough?

Getting our soldiers out of the shooting gallery that Iraq has become, while stepping up efforts to renew diplomacy between the various tribal factions, not through the ineffectual Iraqi Parliament but rather through the means of a Diplomatic Summit with all concerned parties, including Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia who seem to be provider the bulk of foreign fighters needs to be our primary focus.

The delicate issues of Shia revenge for the brutal rule of Saddam, the impending Sunni Genocide and how these issues affect Iran (which is largely Shia) and the Saudis (who are largely Sunni) need to be address in a regional context, yet President Bush (or rather Darth Cheney) won't even allow the State Dept to engage with all the major players in the region.

Meanwhile the Iraqi parliament inches ever closer to voting for Withdrawal Authority on it's own.

One way or another, in the next two months there will be a showdown and his War will very likely begin to come to a close.

But what if, instead, the Senate was in the midsts of a heated Impeachment Trial?

How likely would it be that Senate Democrats would be able to peel off the three or four more votes they need for a successful veto override and begin to ramp down our involvement in Iraq, if they were embroiled in a pitched battle over removing President Bush?

And more importantly, how close would the effort to remove Bush be to succeeding?

At this point in time, not very likely.

Although many of us, including Senator Feingold, might agree that there have been many activities for which either Bush or Cheney could possibly be Impeached - we have yet to find and reveal a truly smoking gun that leads directly to the President and Vice President as deliberately subverting their constitutional obligations in the way that the Nixon Tapes did 30 years ago and led to approval of Three Articles of Impeachment by the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.

Just look at a sample from Article 1, the Obstruction of Justice charges against Nixon.

• making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
• withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
• approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
• interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;
• approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;
• endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
• disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;
• making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or
• endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.

And more from Article 2, all of which are based on actions personally taken by Nixon himself, or specifically directed his subordinates to take.

• He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.
• He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance.
• He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, authorized and permitted to be maintained a secret investigative unit within the office of the President, financed in part with money derived from campaign contributions, which unlawfully utilized the resources of the Central Intelligence Agency, engaged in covert and unlawful activities, and attempted to prejudice the constitutional right of an accused to a fair trial.
• He has failed to take care that the laws were faithfully executed by failing to act when he knew or had reason to know that his close subordinates endeavoured to impede and frustrate lawful inquiries by duly constituted executive, judicial and legislative entities concerning the unlawful entry into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, and the cover-up thereof, and concerning other unlawful activities including those relating to the confirmation of Richard Kleindienst as Attorney General of the United States, the electronic surveillance of private citizens, the break-in into the offices of Dr. Lewis Fielding, and the campaign financing practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President.
• In disregard of the rule of law, he knowingly misused the executive power by interfering with agencies of the executive branch, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Division, and the Office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, of the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Agency, in violation of his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Although similar allegations could be (and have been) lodged against President Bush (Article 3 addressed Nixon's attempts to avoid Congressional subpoenas, much like Bush has done but in Nixon's case - thanks to the White House taping system - there was conclusive proof that his use of executive priviledge to dodge these subpoenas was false. We do not have similar proof of this in Bush's case, yet...), in many ways these actions were carried out by surrogates such as Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Andrew Card, Kyle Sampson or Monica Goodling - not by Bush personally.

Until we have conclusive proof that Bush specifically authorized these actions (and that what he has authorized is clearly illegal and has withstood all appeals and arguments to the contrary - unlike the NSA Case and the Plame Suit), what we have (so far) is essentially nothing. Meanwhile Bush is doing his best to ensure that it stays that way be invoking Executive Privilege whenever, and wherever he can up to and including attempts to block implementation of Contempt of Congress charges against Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers.

Based on the current conclusive evidence, or lack thereof, the we currently have against Bush - any attempt to Impeach him would fail miserably.

There's even a likelihood that it wouldn't even get through the House, let alone full removal in the Senate.

Some (on Dkos) have argued strenuously that this is a "false dichotomy", that the War will only end with the end of the Bush Presidency, and they may have a point there. The problem is that right now the chances and slim and nil that we will get the 67 votes needed to Remove Bush in the Senate. Pushing forward on Impeachment without sufficient evidence to bring forward those votes will be seen as nothing more than partisan pay-back for Clinton in 1998, Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, and also that the effort is just as likely to harden Republicans even further against compromise on Iraq. The result in this case would be "Lose - Lose." You may have an Impeachment, but you wouldn't change the course in Iraq or Remove anyone from office. That's not acceptable to me. If we play this game, we should be playing to win.

There are those who would argue, and I would tend to agree, that the Bush Administration has been nothing short of a massive criminal enterprise which has defrauded and abuses the American Public on issues ranging from Election Fraud, to Environmentalism, War Crimes, Torture, Pseudo-Science, Exploiting Terrorism, Disaster Relief Failures to just plain common-sense, and that failing to have a serious and severe accounting for this rampant misconduct will leave a permanent stain on our nation. It will give a blueprint and carte-blanche for continued abuse of power to any future President - including President Hillary Clinton - making them a virtual Dictator, a High Overlord in a nation of serfs.

I would contend that this situation will be made even more dire if Impeachment is attempted and fails, because if it fails it will do so because either a majority in the House or at least 38 Senators will have openly endorsed and legitimized the concepts behind the "Unitary Executive" and permenently reduced the power of Congress. Once that happens there will be no real way to deter any future President from exploiting similar theories of neo-dictatorship. None.

The Bush Administration must be held accountable for his crimes against the American Public - unfortunately, it probably won't happen this year and possibly not the next. But holding him accountable doesn't mean that the Bush-wacker himself personally has to be the one to go under the bus - it just might happen to be Gonzo who might wither under the Impeachment Lamp after both Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten have spent some quality time in the House Jail for Inherent Contempt.

It would be a powerful symbolic visual to have the House Sargent at Arms marching up and arresting Miers and Bolten, then holding them until they either crack and squeal the way Judith Miller did, or simply rot until the end of Bush's term. That would be good enough for me - if we are also able to End the Occupation of Iraq in the bargain.

Bush himself, isn't that important as Nancy Pelosi has stated.

and the President is... ya know what I say? The President isn’t worth it... he’s not worth impeaching. We’ve got important work to do...

What is important, is the lawless of the Bush Administration. And taking out those who enable that Administration to function, removing Bush's Pawns one by one - Domino by Domino - just might be the better plan for now. It holds his administration accountable for their actions, but doesn't necessarily bog the Congress down in the time it has remaining with an impossible impeachment trial.

There is of course, the possibility that the only way to End The Iraq Occupation - or prevent an unprovoked attack on Iran - might be to Remove Bush from Office Now, rather than letting him slip out the back door on Jan 20, 2009 - but that's a bridge we won't be crossing until September and the current Defense Authorization Money runs out.

Vyan

P.S. Feingold also has a new pair of Censure Motions Against the President (partially inspired by the criticism he received on Kos) Small steps, but going in the right direction.