Should President Bush be Impeached?
The answer - yes - if you are Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky. They are the co-authors of "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W Bush from Office."They also co-wrote an article for the Philadelphia Inquirer this past Wednesday, May 3, 2006, that outlines their reasoning, if we can call it that, for their support of impeachment.
I'd like to comment on these so called "impeachable actions" and state for the record that I completely disagree with their findings.
Here are the reasons they give. I have summarized them for list format.
1. Lying about the need to invade Iraq.
2. Refusing to cooperate with congressional and 9/11 Commission probes.
3. Violating the Bill of Rights. (NSA spy scandal)
4. Obstruction of Justice. (Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, CIA leak case)
5. War crimes. (Bush supposedly authorized torture)
6. Abuse of Power. (Not sure how that is an impeachable act)
7. Criminal Negligence. (Hurricane Katrina slow response)
8. Bush's failure to ward off Global Warming.
Here are my thoughts.
First, Bush didn't lie about the need to invade Iraq. Along with our intelligence agencies, several other countries intelligence agencies said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. George Tenet, former CIA director and a Clinton appointee told the President it was basically a slam dunk. Interestingly enough, Tenet resigned not that long after. Also, Congress reviewed all of the same intelligence that the President reviewed before they overwhelmingly voted to go to war with Iraq. So if the President lied, so did the entire government. On top of that, it's come to light that Saddam had meetings with top terrorist leaders and that he had WMD shipped out of Iraq to Syria on private planes not long before the U.S. invaded. So this argument is not only false but it's getting old as an excuse.
As for the White House non-cooperation/cooperation with the 9/11 commission, both the President and VP met with the 10 panel commission for three hours and answered every question they asked. The issue of not cooperating had to do with divulging top secret and classified information. It was about legalities, not about stonewalling or evading.
Second, the NSA warrantless surveillance program did not target your next door neighbor. There was not one case or complaint filed about the NSA spying on an innocent citizen. It targeted people who had communications with known terrorists. It was a computer generated and fully non-biased search based on numbers and sequences. As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stated, "The terrorist surveillance program is both necessary and lawful...Accordingly, the president has done with this lawful authority the only responsible thing: use it."
Third, Valerie Plame was not an active undercover agent at the time when her identity was brought to the attention of the press. In fact, I believe she hadn't been undercover for about five years or more. Scooter Libby didn't even say her name when speaking to Bob Novack, he said Joseph Wilson's wife. Then it comes out that Bob Woodward knew about Valerie Plame well before Libby said anything to Novak and Bob and Libby had talked several times and Libby never mentioned her. Also, none of Joesph Wilson's misstatements and inaccuracies came out in the MSM so I suggest you read this report.
I didn't hear anything about Bush being accused of war crimes. However, I think that our military should use certain torture tactics if they think it will yield significant information regarding terrorists.
I think every President has ignored a number of acts of Congress. I don't think this constitutes impeachment.
Hurricane Katrina. First of all, you can't blame Bush for a natural disaster. I know the Left likes to blame him for everything, but this is just ridiculous. Bush was in contact with Kathleen Blanco several days before Katrina struck, telling her to call for an evacuation of the city of New Orleans. She said no. He asked her if she wanted him to handle the situation. The President doesn't have the power to take control of a state without the authorization of the State's government, which in this case would be Governor Blanco and he wasn't going to impose martial law. She said no again. Mayor Nagin was also advised to tell his constituents to evacuate. He didn't. He also didn't authorize the use of buses to get the people out when the hurricane struck, so there was a whole parking lot filled with sitting buses that could have helped people get to higher ground. The federal government doesn't take control of natural disasters. It's the States that are supposed to handle it. In this case the incompetency of the Louisiana State Government is to "blame" for the poor response time and poor organization.
The last reason is a joke, not worthy of a response.
It's amazing and truly scary that people using these "reasons" for bashing the Bush administration and threatening impeachment are getting their books published and are being taken seriously. None of the reasons Dave and Barbara give have a factual basis. It's based on a deep and unfounded hatred for President Bush. However, whatever the motive behind it, most people will read that article and take it for the truth. And that is something that needs to be dealt with.
posted by Snowbird @ 2:55 PM
