First Gonzales, then Bush: Impeachment should be a serious option -- with an intermediary step.

from the American Prospect:



First Gonzales, then Bush

Impeachment should be a serious option -- with an intermediary step.

Robert Kuttner | August 13, 2007



In American politics, brave actions are politically unthinkable until someone thinks to act on them. Then public opinion can turn, sometimes with surprising speed.
For several months, I have been arguing with friends and colleagues that impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be a serious political option. Just two of their crimes and misdemeanors -- willfully lying America into war and firing federal prosecutors for purely political reasons, then further obstructing justice by stonewalling about the dynamics of the firings -- are more than adequate constitutionally to impeach. There are several other offenses, ranging from defying the lawful mandates of Congress and the courts, to gross invasions of civil liberty, to denying democracy itself by systematically undermining the right to vote. And, in the seventh year of this eerie administration, in which the president is a puppet of the vice president (rendering the usual mechanisms of accountability opaque), the curtain has only just begun to be pulled back on Cheney.

The conversation always goes the same way. Yes, say the prudent ones, to some extent the constitutional assaults are even worse than Richard Nixon's. But we have a cure for this administration -- the 2008 election. And an impeachment proceeding this late in Bush's second term would be seen as playing politics. The people don't want impeachment, they want Congress to do the public's business.

These are fair questions, to which I will return in a moment. But for now, consider the constitutional and political logic of an intermediate step, the impeachment of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Given the several counts against him, including his lying to Congress about domestic spying, lies that have now been contradicted by sworn FBI testimony, and his utter stonewalling about the firing of the U.S. attorneys, no reasonable observer could dismiss an impeachment proceeding as merely playing politics. There is no other way for justice to be done. The case for impeaching the attorney general was ripe months ago. I urged that course this past March in a Boston Globe column also published on the Prospect website.

Constitutionally, the framers designed impeachment precisely so that Congress would be the final check on out-of-control executive branch officials who broke laws. Politically, many prominent Republicans have already called for Gonzales to resign. An impeachment proceeding would force the issue, and put other Republicans in a double bind of either defending the indefensible or adding to the pressure for his resignation. Either way, the process weakens the Bush administration and strengthens its opposition. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=first_gonzales_then_bush