George McGovern Calls for Bush and Cheney's Impeachment

Posted by Paul Rosenberg, Open Left at 9:01 AM on January 6, 2008.

"Nixon Was Bad. These Guys Are Worse."

Calling it "the only honorable course" for him to take, Former Senator George McGovern calls for impeachment.

In a Washington Post editorial, "Why I Believe Bush Must Go", former Senator George McGovern has called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, saying they "are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses." McGovern went on to say that "American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime."

In addition to the folly, deceit, illegality and immorality of the Iraq War, McGovern also cited the bungling of Hurricane Katrina.

"Impeachment is unlikely, of course," McGovern wrote, "But we must still urge Congress to act."

Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

McGovern went on to quote former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, a key figure in the Nixon impeachment proceedings, who wrote two years ago:

A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors."

While convetional wisdom sees impeachment as divisive, McGovern sees things from the opposite perspective, stressing the need for healing and restoration:

I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.

In a key part of his editorial, McGovern wrote:

Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses. They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard.

From the beginning, the Bush-Cheney team's assumption of power was the product of questionable elections that probably should have been officially challenged -- perhaps even by a congressional investigation.

In a more fundamental sense, American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.

All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law. This reckless disregard for life and property, as well as constitutional law, has been accompanied by the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

McGovern also specifically contrasted Bush and Cheney with Nixon:

I have not been heavily involved in singing the praises of the Nixon administration. But the case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice President Spiro T. Agnew after the 1972 election. The nation would be much more secure and productive under a Nixon presidency than with Bush. Indeed, has any administration in our national history been so damaging as the Bush-Cheney era?

How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness?

Finally, the editorial ended on a wistful note of muted optimism:

There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.

A great man has spoken. Is anyone listening?

Tagged as: bush, impeachment, cheney, nixon, mcgovern

Paul Rosenberg is a regular blogger for Open Left