A common comment by cynics, including many Democrats, goes like this:

"It takes two thirds of the senate to vote to convict to get the bastards out- it ain’t gonna happen. I have no interest in impeachment unless the bastards are out."

That sentiment, like Pelosi's fiat taking impeachment "off the table," expresses no faith in our Constitution and seems not to understand the process. In what follows, I am assuming that the process would start with the impeachment of Dick Cheney, because that is the resolution presently on hand in the House Judiciary Committee (H. Res. 399/799). But at a whole number of points, Cheney and Bush were joined at the hip (e.g., in the outing of Valerie Plame). A thorough impeachment of Cheney will inevitably lead to Bush. He could be named as an unindicted co-conspirator. The evidence uncovered in the process of impeaching Cheney could uncover clear evidence of felonies committed by Bush that could force his resignation. So, let's take a look at what an enlightened leadership could do, if they thought strategically.

Taking impeachment off the table is a Spot on the hands of the Democratic leadership of the 110th Congress that will not go away. Like Lady MacBeth, they will find it impossible to wash away this stain.

They are clearly derelict in their failure to uphold their oath of office (to defend the Constitution). This will become known as the Congress that Would Not Impeach, even though possessed of an abundance of evidence. Oh, yes, I know all the usual rationalizations ("We don't have the votes," "There's not enough time," and other self-fulfilling prophecies). I've also heard that Deals were Made for our welfare, but the deal has been made is that the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot, and will now walk with a limp forever (Hey, I can pile on the metaphors with anyone!)

Bob in HI

Polls show that Congress has fallen to new lows in public opinion surveys-- even lower than President Bush! I believe that this shows a failure of Democratic Party senior leadership.

The public wants the war to end. So what does the leadership do? They make a little gesture of opposition, but then when President Bush vetoes their bill, they cave in and send him all the money he wants, whining and wringing their hands about not having 60 votes.

Last September, Conchita posted a long diary about a visit with Jerry Nadler. Her labors were only answered by 9 comments, and the comment period for her post is now closed, but her labors have not gone unnoticed. Looseheadprop drew attention to Conchita's diary over at FireDogLake today in a post titled,  Sometimes We Do Better Than We Expect–Yet Again, so I wanted to provide a belated recommendation to Conchita's diary, because her call to action is still valid, as is Looseheadprop's! Please give both posts a read, and then do something!

Bob in HI

(A previous, local version of this blog was published September 29, 2007 at http://pd-hawaii.com/...

I remember President Bush's  rush to war in Iraq:  While proclaiming that war was the "last resort," the President was clearly impatient. UN sanctions were actually working well.   According to the Wikipedia,

The United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi WMD throughout the 1990s in spite of persistent Iraqi obstruction. Washington withdrew weapons inspectors in 1998, resulting in Operation Desert Fox, which further degraded Iraq's WMD capability. . . .

Hawai'i has two representatives, Abercrombie and Hirono, and both of them are members of the Democratic Progressive Caucus. However, both of them oppose impeachment on practical grounds (more on that, later).

Both of them are on the record with published views on impeachment: Hirono on July 9, on the Maui County Democratic Party blog, and Abercrombie on July 11 in the Honolulu Advertiser's "Hot Seat" blog.

The Democratic Party of Hawaii has also taken a position on the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney, reprinted here below the fold.  

I want to write a little about Al Gore's book, Assault on Reason, after reading the first few chapters. I want to get a few observations "out there" quickly for people to react to.

Gore seems to use the phrase "the public forum" dozens of times. He seems to have in mind  primarily the meaning given to this phrase by Jurgen Habermas (e.g., p.26). I see the evolution of this extending from the "town square" (remember the "town crier"? No, I'm not THAT old, but I did read about it) to. . .  the Internet!

Well, the toobz are on fire today at the news that President Bush has commuted Libby's sentence. I think this may well boomerang on him--he may wind up antagonizing everyone! The Free Scooter crowd will be unhappy because Bush left in place the felony convictions, and everyone else will be unhappy that Scooter is allowed to walk. Do you remember what happened when Paris Hilton was let out a few days after starting her stay in the clink? The public outrage was sufficient that they had to hastily escort her back into confinement.

But we cannot expect the Press to do the heavy lifting for us. Now is the time to write Letters to the Editor of our local papers!!! And just to help you along a little, here's a handy quote (H/t to Peterr @ FireDogLake):

From the WaPo coverage of an outrageous White House action in a scandal a generation ago, I give you Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, after he had been fired in the Saturday Night Massacre:

The idea of "priming the pump" for impeachment was suggested in an earlier post by looseheadprop, Priming the Pump. She wrote,

When you are going to bring a case to trial you have two standards to think about:

The first is, do I have a prima facia case? That is, do I have at least one piece of admissable evidence to support each and every element on which I bear the burden of proof?

The second is: Do I have a case that can win before the jury I expect to be before? . . .
Now let's think about the jury that we KNOW will be hearing any impeachment case that might come in the next 2 years. Unlike your average jury trial situation where you may have some ideas about the generic makeup of your jury pool, but no idea until after jury selection about your actual individual jurors; in the case of impeachment, we already know exactly which individuals will be sitting on the jury PLUS we already know (or can find out with minimal research skills) a great deal about what they believe and think and what motivates them.  In short, it is not hard to figure out where their "buttons" are.

Much attention has been devoted to Dick Cheney's role in supporting the "unitary executive" doctrine, and his assault on the Constitutional balance of powers. Much has also been made of the role of the "Neo-con cabal" of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and others, including one of their most prominent think-tanks, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). But wait! There's more!

What's less well known is the association of this bunch with the elite "Bilderberger Group."

Many of us waited with bated breath as we listened to Patrick Fitzgerald's press conference after the verdict on Lewis Libby's trial was announced. After all, no one had yet been charged with the leak of Valerie Plame's status, which was the reason Fitzgerald had been appointed special counsel in the first place. And had we not heard that there was a "cloud" over the Office of the Vice President? Had not the trial itself uncovered evidence of a number of crimes and misdemeanors?

So, many of us went into shock when Fitzgerald said that no further indictments were planned. Why not????

There are many theories about this. One is that Fitzgerald needs Libby to flip, and be a witness against Cheney, and that he doesn't have enough strong evidence without Libby's testimony. I don't know. But some claimed that Fitzgerald's mandate was limited, and this was about all that he could do.

FireDogLake is doing a masterful job following the Libby trial-- not just in the liveblogging, which itself is ground-breaking, but in the analytical blogs and comments on those blogs.

The whole investigation of Patrick Fitzgerald of the 'leak' of Valerie Plame's status with the CIA is predicated on the idea that it was illegal. Libby's trial is not grounded on the fact that he leaked the information, but that he lied about it. Fitzgerald as scrupulously avoided the issue of the leak itself, which would inevitably bring up questions about whether or not the leak was legal.

A case can be made that President Bush-- or the Vice President, acting on his behalf-- declassified Plame's status so that it was not technically illegal to leak her status. Around the same time, parts of the current NIE were "declassified" in order to leak them to the press. The trial of Scooter Libby has added new evidence to the public record of such activities. Were they legal?

Four years ago, the Dixie Chicks caused uproar among many US country music fans for saying they were "ashamed" of President George Bush. In public. In a concert. On stage. In front of thousands of people. In London.

There were public protests. CD destruction parties. Death threats. The Clear Channel network of music stations suddenly changed their programming.

But now comes vindication, in the form of five Grammys.

The FireDogLake team is getting pretty good at this live reporting thing. Take a look, for example, of today’s summary of the Libby trial by Jane Hamsher & "Swopa"
on Politics.tv, better than anything you might hope to find on CNN.

I've become hooked. The FDL coverage has created an incredible online community that is fun to watch. The success of the FDL team has at least three components:

  1. Live blogging of the trial,
  2. insightful commentaries by the bloggers, and
  3. free-for-all comments by FDL "pups" and bloodhounds.

There's a lot of fluff in the comments (the "pups"), but also some good bloodhound work. Consider, for example, this comment by "cinnamonape" on Christy Hardin Smith’s blog today under the title, The Trouble With Mary.

John Conyers has a resolution on the table to investigate whether or not to investigate. Democrats are all tied in knots. Pelosi says, Impeachment-- no way.

And yet, never before have a president and vice-president done so much that deserves impeachment. This is obscene.

The standard line coming from inside the Beltway is that there's no point in starting impeachment proceedings right now because the Republicans would never allow impeachment to be passed to the Senate. Excuse #2 is that it would cause Republicans and the public to rally around the President.

Is this another case of DLC spinelessness?

MSNBC is conducting a poll right now on whether President Bush
should be impeached. GO VOTE! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
The results, which you get right after you vote, are utterly astounding at this time.

With 291,253 responses after I 'voted', the results are 87% in favor of impeachment! That's incredible!!! We should be e-mailing our Representatives in Congress about this.

Of course, the people who answer polls like this are hardly a representative sample of the entire population. Nevertheless, since MSNBC can hardly be identified as a left-wing Democratic news channel, these results are pretty impressive, and the sample size is not small.

Bob in HI

Since Rep. Ed Case has abandoned his House seat to run against Sen. Akaka, the race to claim his seat in the House is on. A unique candidate forum is being hosted by Progressive Democrats of Hawaii (PD-H,) a group of local democrats committed to social justice and political change, and the Hawaii Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action. The Forum was written up in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (http://starbulletin.com/...)

The format will be a form of "Political Speed Dating!", a candidate forum to inform voters about important issues and maximize interaction between candidates and residents in order to make better informed choices for the upcoming Primary election.