History Doesn’t Impeach, But It Will Judge

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/21/3323/

History Doesn’t Impeach, But It Will Judge
by Dan DeWalt


One of the more ridiculous utterances coming from the mouths of Democrats who refuse to defend the Constitution and hold the Bush administration accountable is that “History will impeach George Bush” so they won’t have to. Vermont’s Peter Welch has trotted out this phrase, but if he would take a moment to read some history, he would understand that he has it exactly backwards.

Louis Fisher, citing the 1803 case of Stuart v. Laird in his American Constitutional Law states: “The boundaries between the three branches of government are also strongly affected by the role of custom and acquiescence. When one branch engages in a certain practice and the other branches acquiesce, the practice gains legitimacy and can fix the meaning of the Constitution.”

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Not only are Welch and his fellow travelers ignoring the Bush administration’s crimes and constitutional over-reaching, they are establishing a precedent of acquiescence that will make it even harder for a future Congress with backbone (should that ever occur) to hold the next runaway executive branch to account.

We are facing a severe perversion of our Democracy. The Republicans have criminalized the executive branch. The Democrats, rather than fighting to protect the Constitution (or represent the will of the nation in ending the Iraq occupation), are willing actors in the drama that is unfolding. Regaining power matters above all else. And they have cynically decided that the best way to achieve power is to ride the disintegration of the Bush administration to the bitter end, reaping the political benefits and ignoring the “collateral damage” of lives and constitutional damage that the next seventeen months will bring.

History will judge, not impeach. And the Congress, as well as the President will be condemned for leading the country down such a disastrous and dishonorable path.

What will History have to say about the American people? Will we too be condemned for our inaction? Or will we take action now and be the only bright footnote in this dismal narrative?

there has to be someone left alive, and at least a modicum of civilization to support them.

the idiots!

They are more worried about 2008 than in defending the US constitution!! They are acting just like republicans want them too.. Scared!

the New Totalitarianism, as it were, if things go in either of those two direction history will at worst say what we say of the 1930s Germans and at best will say of us what we say about the citizenry of Rome, who allowed the Caesars to happen.