Impeachment Without Blowjobs

Impeachment without Blowjobs

http://observer.bard.edu/articles/opinions/229

BY JESSE MYERSON

After nearly six years of investigating the matter, I have finally disappointingly determined that President Bush has never committed the ultimate impeachable offense: getting dome on the job (if a congressman did this, would it be called “getting a job in the dome?”). My suspicion, for what it’s worth, is still that the reason behind this is just that it’s never been offered to him, and that were it ever, the president would criminally accept. But I’m not one for pre-emptive justice, or for conviction on the basis of guesswork. No, instead, in my quest for impeachment I have, by incident, compiled a list of more minor crimes which, while by no means as egregious as what that wretched, wretched Clinton fellow did, might, taken in whole, constitute grounds for impeachment. Indulge me.

1. President Bush and his administration manipulated intelligence in order to go to war with Iraq. There were no WMD’s. There were no links to Al Qaeda. There was no depleted uranium from Niger. To believe that all this “faulty intelligence” fell into the laps of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, you have to believe beyond proof that they did not come into power wanting to go to war with Iraq. Simply go to the website of Project for the New American Century, and read their reports to disabuse yourself of such a notion (members of PNAC include Cheney, Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and others). For a full account of this atrocity, refer to Rep. John Conyers’ (D-MI) report: “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Cover-ups in the Iraq War.”

2. He is illegally spying… maybe even on you. The top-secret National Security Agency was, by President Bush’s recommendation, spying on Americans, without warrants. By the statutes of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA), this is strictly prohibited—in fact, part of the argument for Nixon’s impeachment was that very offense. The FISA court, whose sole purpose is to hand out warrants in an extremely speedy and often even retroactive manner, has received 19,000 requests since 1979 and denied just five.

3. Among the greatest cities in the world is now a silhouette of its former self because the Administration simply didn’t care to take appropriate measures to protect it. Bush looted SELA, the fund a Clinton-year congress started in order to ensure that Southern Louisiana was provided for, in case of emergency, to pay for his perverse tax-cuts and the aforementioned war in Iraq. Visit to watch the President as he doesn’t care about the dire warnings being issued him by experts and not-so-experts (like the luckless, wretched Michael Brown). More people died than in any terrorist attack, and President Bush is largely responsible.

4. His administration, in a politically-motivated dirty trick, leaked the identity of a CIA operative. Now, I can’t prove that any specific member of the administration did this, but Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation yet continues, and I am confident that when the facts are made plain, the highest reaches of the administration will be implicated. This is not only impeachable, but constitutionally punishable by execution, insofar as it is TREASON!

5. His administration was complicit in and continues to benefit from the September 11 attacks on New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. Since November 22, 1963 (when, in Dallas, the then President’s brains were blown to little tiny pieces) every poll has indicated that roughly one-third of the population believes the government’s official account of the transpired events. And for good reason: you’d be nuts to believe such obvious poppycock. You’d be equally nuts to believe the government’s official account of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. So far, the best challenge of the official account is a wonderful and easily read book, David Ray Griffin’s “The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11.” It’s not just a good idea to read this book; it’s your patriotic duty.

6. Then, of course, there is the single worst crime he committed, the most un-American, and the one that poses the greatest threat to democracy: he stole the election. I would argue that he stole two of them. For evidence of the latter, turn to another report by Congressman Conyers, this one entitled “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff.”

Several congressmen, including John Conyers, have called either for President Bush’s impeachment or for investigations thereunto. It is time we all as lovers of democracy, freedom, justice and truth, join them. The word is “impeachment.” Spread it.