Molly Ivins: Wreckage of the Bush administration

Looking at the wreckage of the Bush administration leaves one with the depressed query, "Now what?" The only help to the country that can come from this ugly and spectacular crack-up is, in theory, things can't get worse. This administration is so discredited it cannot talk the country into an unnecessary war with Iran as it did with Iraq. In theory, spending is so out of control it cannot cut taxes for the rich again; the fiscal irresponsibility of the Bushies is already among its lasting legacies.

As we all know, things can always get worse, and often do. I rather think it's going to be up to the Democrats to hold the metaphoric hands of this crippled administration until it limps off stage. The Republican National Committee has a new scare tactic for the faithful: You must give to the party, or else the Democrats will spend the next two years investigating the administration (horror of horrors). Those who recall the insanely trivial investigations of the Clinton years may indeed regard this as the ultimate waste of time and money (as even Ken Starr concluded, there never was anything to Whitewater), but in fact it could be a therapeutic use of the next biennium. In fact, the offenses are not comparable.

Suppose we really did stop to investigate why and how and who is responsible for the lies, the deformed policies and the inability to govern of this administration. There is a wealth of lessons to be learned about the dangers of ideological delusion and of contempt for governance.

Trouble is, the world is not apt to hold still for two years. It seems to me pointless to impeach Bush. In the first place, the Republicans so trivialized impeachment into partisan piffle, it would look like little more than payback. In the second place, I believe Dick Cheney is seriously off the rails, apparently deeply paranoid -- let's not put him in charge. The minimum we should expect of Bush in return for dropping impeachment (or not) is that he cease breaking the law. Despite the opinions of Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, etc., the president of the United States does not have the authority to set aside the law.

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http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20835

no way should we go for a "deal" whereby they "agree" to stop breaking the law.

because we all KNOW they'll continue to break the law, and they'll be pardoned and out of office before we can prove it all over again.

the Republican's are helping every step of the way. The only thing missing is for Bush to just come out and say I am the Dictator therefor I decide what law to follow and you all can shove it.

with his actions (not to mention all his "dictator jokes")

Every day that they get to walk in to the White House, sit down at their desks and CONTINUE, means they are successful. That's how they gauge their success: that they get to carry on another day.

They need to be thrown out, this afternoon.

Molly hits the nail on the head with this. The whole administration has been a disaster, and keeps getting worse. I believe the enablers in Congress will be held accountable by future historians. They have abdicated their power to Bush and Cheney, and have violated their oaths of office by not upholding the Constitution.

We have to retake Congress in order to halt the most damaging of Bush's failed policies. Actually, all of his policies have failed, so we've got a huge job ahead of us. People like Lieberman, who is one of the worst enablers, should be voted out of office, too. The final irony may be that Bush has succeeded in not only inflicting lasting damaging on our country and the world, but also on the Republican party. They will be brought down by one of their own.

We can't let a Cheney presidency (for what -- maybe a year?) to be the trump card that prevents Bush from being held accountable by means of impeachment. Molly states that the president has been breaking the law. I'm sorry, but you don't cut a deal with someone who has committed crimes against the American people (and against humanity). It's a matter of principle; of upholding our system of the rule of law; and of ensuring that future presidents don't hold themselves above the law and get away with it.

Truth and justice must prevail. What Molly (and Pelosi) suggest is to refrain from upholding the law for considerations that are, in my opinion, less vitally important.

The SOB needs to be held accountable.... And as far as the world is concerned, that simple act of impeachment will go a long way in restoring their confidence in Americans !

I really don't understand using Cheney as a trump against impeachment like that when he can and should be brought up on the same charges as Bush and even some others in which Bush doesn't figure.

the Plame affair should be enough to indict and remove him from office. Replay of '73 - '74, when Agnew went away, then Nixon. Besides, without Cheney to run interference it will be so much easier to bring charges against *.

If Bush can be impeached for manipulating intelligence prior to the Iraq war, so can Cheney. If anything, he was more active in that high crime and misdemeanor.

I can't agree with Molly that impeachment would be a waste of time.

It seems to me pointless to impeach Bush. In the first place, the Republicans so trivialized impeachment into partisan piffle, it would look like little more than payback. In the second place, I believe Dick Cheney is seriously off the rails, apparently deeply paranoid -- let's not put him in charge.

First of all, the Cheney will be president argument is invalid. He will be impeached, too. While there are enough good reasons to impeach and remove Bush, there are more to impeach and remove Cheney. While Cheney has been part and parcel to many of the same high crimes and misdemeanors as Bush, including the manipulation of intelligence prior to going to war against Iraq, no one has accused Bush of shepherding reconstruction contracts for a corporation of which he was once CEO through the procurement process on a no bid basis. Mr. Cheney's activities ought to be investigated by Congress and perhaps the Justice Department for charges of conflict of interest.

Second, it isn't the Democrats fault that Republicans trivialized the impeachment process. For the benefit of the Christian Right, banging an intern in the back room doesn't qualify as an impeachable offense. For the benefit of neoconservative imperialists, leading the nation into a war of aggression by deliberately lying about the threat actually posed by the other nation concerned does. And, for the benefit of the few remaining Bush Bubbahs in America, so does setting aside treaties concerning torture, the treatment of detained persons or the administration of occupied territory, the violation of the Fourth and Sixth Amendments and the unmasking of a covert agent for purely political purposes. To recover the process as a necessary check against presidential power, and as something to be used only in extreme circumstances is an argument for proceeding with the impeachment of Bush, not one to be used against it.

but I have little confidence that anyone Bush chooses as a replacement would be much better. His pattern has been to go out and find the absolutely worst person for the job and then ram him/her down our throats.

It's not because I want to make Nancy Pelosi president, but because I wouldn't trust either Bush or Cheney to appoint a Vice President who wouldn't be just as bad. Neither man deserves the opportunity to choose his own successor.

They need to get rid of them both, today if possible.

too late . . .

and as to "the wisest thing Democrats can do in the next two years is to begin steadily undoing what Bush hath wrought -- on tax and spending, on global warming, and on surveillance and other illegal lunges for power" . . . even if the Democrats took back both houses of Congress, in neither would they have a veto-proof majority . . . and any "undoing" they tried to accomplish would surely be met by Bush's veto pen . . .