Blue Dogs Hold Up Impeachment and an Obama Win
by ralphlopez, Sat Aug 30, 2008 at 11:02:32 AM EDT
The light went completely on as to who is using these anti-impeachment arguments on the Democrats when I read this article. Obama deserves a better party than this. Rob Kall on HuffPo says:
It's time the Democrats in Congress did what the vast majority of democrats want, and the constitution demands-- impeachment hearings for Cheney and Bush.I've had a chance, over the past few months, to get a feel for this. I commissioned a Zogby poll which found that a big majority of Democrats wanted impeachment. I've spoken at local democratic meetings and the support for impeachment is always close to unanimous. Even at the recent Obama unity even, when I asked the 25 people in attendance if they thought Bush and Cheney should be impeached, the response was unanimous.
But Nancy Pelosi won't put impeachment "on the table." And John Conyers has offered some pathetically weak arguments on why he should not hold impeachment hearings, including the shameful argument that it will produce and adverse reaction from the right wing.
The fact is, congress's ratings are at an all time single digit low-- a well deserved rating, primarily due to the hijacking of the Democratic party by it's bluedog wing. These right wing DINOs (Democrats in name only,) led by Stenny Hoyer, have sold out The "Dem" bluedogs have sold out the Democrats who voted for them again and again. Glenn Greenwald has written about what to do about them recently. Let's give "Blue Dogs" the boot.
But meanwhile, I think the bluedogs are the reason Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers are refusing to act upon the evidence Dennis Kucinich and all the people who testified in front of the House Judiciary committee last Friday, at the pseudo impeachment hearings.
The brutal fact is, and I do believe it's a fact, impeachment hearings offer the Democrats the best chance they have of not only insuring Obama's victory, but also for taking 60 seats in the Senate.
First, I'm talking about hearings. There's no need to rush to a vote in the senate. The successful efforts to dump corrupt White house administration people never reached the senate. Both Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon were forced to resign because of HEARINGS.
The recent ruling that Harriet Meirs must testify before the House Judiciary Committee in September gives HJC Chairman Conyers the chance to do exactly what former congresswoman Liz Holtzman suggested in the near-impeachment hearings last month. Holtzman back in the '70s was on Judiciary when they were impeaching Nixon. Conyers would say, "this is an impeachment inquiry" which means there can be no pardons or claims of executive privilege. To do so is automatically impeachable, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. Bush claims Executive Privilege, there is only one way to vote. Now you have Holtzman's "Twofer", both Bush and Cheney gone.
This has always been a matter of political will. The charges, crimes and evidence have always been there. How long will this party's agenda, and talking points, be run by Democrats who should be registered Republicans, who are allowed to flout party-line votes continually without being disciplined by the leadership, without ever losing committee seats? They should be given places of honor at the Republican convention taking place right now for all the wonderful things they have done for them.
Kall winds up:
Ask most of the Democratic party members of congress and you get a unified front -- the talking point that they don't want to waste the Congress' time. This is pure garbage -- an affront to the constitution they continue to allow to be violated by Bush and Cheney and their appointees, as the news demonstrates with new examples every day.It's time, and its the right, smart thing for the Dems to do.
But even beyond what Kall contends is an incorrect analysis by Blue Dogs of how impeachment would affect Democrats, there is a point where we must rise above the partisan politics and unite to defend what belongs to all of us, the Constitution and our constitutional rights. Bruce Fein of the Reagan administration, in the July 25th hearings, said Bush and Cheney are eminently impeachable and that it could be swift. Fein, a lifelong Republican, said he "never felt prouder to be an American" than when he saw Richard Nixon resign. Fein called the Nixon impeachment "immensely unifying." Nixon broke the law, and the law applied equally to everyone.
Fein said this impeachment would differ because the Bush offenses are so "open and notorious," requiring little investigation.
Let's face it, pro-choicers are never going to convince all pro-lifers to switch, and anti-illegal immigration activists are not going to agree with proponents of amnesty. We Americans are a squabbling tribe, and we will always go back to being so. But we can unite for this magic moment. Impeachment will not divide, it will unite. This is a holiday weekend. Pick up the phone and leave a message at your congressman's office. If nothing else, you can answer your grandchildren, far in the future, if things go bad and we live through endless wars against invisible enemies, lawless administrations which have seized upon the Bush precedent, when they ask: Did you do anything to try to stop this? Back when it was just beginning? Did you try to stop the men who started doing these things? At least you can tell your grandchildren, yes, it wasn't much, but I did call my congressman and said: "impeach them." It wasn't much, but I did it.
On Tuesday morning let the congressmen return from their vacations and conventions to find voice-mailboxes chock-full with renewed demands for democracy. Chairman Conyers must not miss this opportunity. Leave a message and say: "When Meirs testifies, as she must, declare this is a formal impeachment inquiry. Conyers must say the word." This closes the door to the administration's plan to blanket-pardon itself into the sunset, leaving 4200 fine Americans dead over lies, their families heartbroken and with children who will never know their fathers or mothers, unmeasured carnage among civilians who did not attack us, a spat-upon Constitution, and an economy broken for the benefit of the newly rich at Halliburton. Don't believe the Blue Dogs. They are not on your side, nor on Obama's.
Bruce Fein: Impeachment was "immensely unifying."
video which has footage of Bush Cheney etc. saying one thing at one time then exactly the opposite at another.
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