Impeachment Talk Reaches the Mainstream
Belief:
Is Blind Faith in God and the Bible a Modern Invention?
Devilstower
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Rachel Maddow Goes After the "Child Labor-Endorsing, Pro-Slavery Freak" Corporations
DrugReporter:
Why Are We Locking Up Traumatized Veterans for Their Addictions Instead of Offering Them Treatment?
Penny Coleman
Environment:
Whistleblowers Say Oil Reserve Numbers Deliberately Inflated to Avoid Panic, Appease the US
Matthew McDermott
Food:
Quitting Meat Is a Process -- Almost Impossible to Do All at Once
Jonathan Safran Foer
Health and Wellness:
Does the House Bill's Public Option Kill Off the Senate's?
Booman
Immigration:
Immigrants and Health-Care: What Part of LEGAL Doesn't Washington Understand?
Marielena Hincapié
Media and Technology:
Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh Stoking GOP Civil War
Eric Boehlert
Movie Mix:
The Yes Men: Pranksters Out to Fix the World
Mark Engler
Politics:
What Obama Is Up Against in His Own Branch of Government
Russ Baker
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
"Precious" Star Claims the Spotlight
Emily Wilson
Rights and Liberties:
Ugly Truth: Most U.S. Kids Sentenced to Die In Prison Are Black
Liliana Segura
Sex and Relationships:
9 Silly Things People Say When They Hear You Don't Want Kids (And Ways to Counter Them)
Liz Langley
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Radioactive Wastewater in New York Raises More Concerns About Oil Drilling
Abrahm Lustgarten
World:
Why the Ft. Hood Massacre Is George Bush's Fault
Thom Hartmann
The groundswell for President Bush's impeachment is growing, and last week the establishment media finally took notice.
The Wall Street Journal ran a story analyzing how a planned impeachment of President Bush will play out as an "election issue," including a helpful pie chart showing 51 percent of Americans support Congress in considering Bush's impeachment if he "didn't tell the truth about the reasons for the Iraq war."
The Washington Post published a commentary acknowledging that support for impeachment is now "reaching beyond the usual suspects," and the Associated Press covered the spike in pro-impeachment resolutions from local officials across the country. Resolutions recently passed in Vermont and California, and this weekend Democratic Party officials in Michigan voted to urge local officials to pass another. Meanwhile, 14 Democratic candidates for Congress have announced their support for impeachment.
These local efforts are beginning to advance impeachment at the national level. The resolution by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to investigate impeachment is slowly but steadily gaining co-sponsors, including three this month. It now has 29 co-sponsors -- roughly one out of every seven Democrats in the U.S. House -- a promising start that ensures that the legislation attracts more votes when it reaches the floor.
These activist and legislative efforts helped finally push the "i-word" on to the notoriously conservative cable news last week. On Wednesday, Joe Scarborough aired an impeachment debate on MSNBC -- one of the first times the subject has been debated this year on cable. Scarborough's producers invited me to make the case for impeachment after learning of the new book I co-authored, "Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush."
Since impeachment rarely receives any consideration on television, I took the opportunity to explain our case, even if it meant going on Joe Scarborough's turf. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who opposes impeaching President Bush, said during the show that he was "fascinated" by some arguments for impeachment. He accurately described the groundswell:
There's a movement out there right now calling for George W. Bush to be impeached. Just take a look at how many cities and towns across America have either drafted resolutions calling for the president's impeachment or are considering doing so. Not only that, but 11 candidates for the House of Representatives and three for the U.S. Senate are all running on the impeachment platform. Why do they want the president gone? Well, here are the common reasons cited. The war in Iraq, which they say Bush lied to get us into; warrantless eavesdropping, authorized by the president; the torturing of prisoners; and the president`s response to Hurricane Katrina.It is significant that impeachment activists have received Scarborough's attention. When we debated the topic, Scarborough even conceded that the arguments for impeachment in our book were "intellectually honest." That's because it's easy to make an intellectually honest case for impeachment: President Bush has publicly admitted to breaking the law. Here is how I explained the clearest example of the president's multifaceted illegal conduct -- spying on Americans:
the fact is that the law provides a clear-cut way that the president has to do these things. He has to go to the FISA court. He knowingly violated that law. And the law says -- there are two laws, in fact, that say that when you do that, you are guilty of a crime. There it is. That is one of the high crimes and misdemeanors.Pat Buchanan was quick to argue that even Senate Democrats weren't supporting impeachment. While many Washington Democrats appear to be spineless these days, a growing number of House Democrats are supporting a resolution to investigate impeachment. This debate is the start of many to come. Impeachment is finally out of the bottle, and it is not going away. C-SPAN plans to televise a discussion of our impeachment book, moderated by Amy Goodman in New York on March 28, and our attorneys are receiving more requests to explain the legal case for impeachment from grassroots groups and reporters.
William Goodman is the Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights where he supervises an active docket of over 80 cases, including representing the Guantánamo detainees before the Supreme Court, challenging the NSA domestic spying program, filing the first case to challenge the Bush Administration's " extraordinary rendition," and representing Muslim and Arab men caught up in the post-9/11 immigration dragnet.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.