President Bush: Growing Case For Impeachment

Written by: Dr. Albert Samuels

It seems a week cannot pass without another Bush administration scandal. Washington is abuzz this week with the story of the eight U.S. attorneys who were summarily fired recently for alleged “performance issues” (defined as insufficient loyalty to the administration’s political agenda). This latest scandal may cost Attorney General Alberto Gonzales his job - and he deserves that fate. But the real source of the problem is not Gonzales; it’s Bush. by Dr. Albert L Samuels

This latest episode represents one more example of the arrogant uses of power that have so typified this administration Why should the American people be surprised that the White House would needlessly politicize a position like the U.S. attorney’s office - people who are charged with enforcing federal law on a nonpartisan basis. After all, this administration has placed partisan political considerations over competence and expertise in every other aspect of government - whether it be the appointment of key agency heads to the awarding of no-bid contracts for Iraqi reconstruction, to politicizing intelligence to justify an unnecessary war, to “doctoring up” scientific studies by government scientists that conflicted with the administration’s ideology. With each new outrage, the case for impeaching George W. Bush grows stronger. In fact, no president more aptly fits the constitutional description of the kind of leader guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” than the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Here is a partial list of impeachable offenses committed by this president.

1. Bush and his administration deliberately misled the Congress and the American people in order to make the case for an unnecessary war in Iraq. The evidence for this charge is now so well known that it requires little explanation here. What is plain now is not that the administration was simply mistaken (as it would have us to believe), but that the president and his surrogates purposely misrepresented the intelligence and suppressed evidence whose existence they were fully aware of that would have cast doubt on the story they wanted the American people to believe.

2. To cover up their crime of misleading the nation to war, the administration deliberately blew the cover of a CIA agent in order to discredit a prominent critic of a key aspect of the administration’s defense for going to war with Iraq. The recent conviction of Lewis “Scooter” Libby revealed just how obsessed the administration was with discrediting Ambassador Joseph Wilson for his op-ed column. Perhaps most disturbingly, the president who vowed to “get to the bottom” of the leak was himself at the bottom - he secretly declassified information from top-secret reports for the purpose of undermining the credibility of Ambassador Wilson. It is a testament to the reality that this administration views intelligence not as highly guarded national security secrets, but as just another weapon that can be deployed in the “politics of personal destruction.” All is fair in love, war, and apparently politics.

3. The administration conducted warrantless electronic surveillance of American citizens in clear violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The president in 2004 deliberately lied when he denied that his administration was conducting wiretaps without court orders. We now know that he had authorized this secret program more than two years prior to uttering this statement. Once the program was uncovered, not only did the president refuse to apologize for breaking the law, but vowed to continue the program regardless of what Congress says. This has been but one example of the governing rationale of this administration - its belief that a president as Commander in Chief in a time of war should not be held accountable by either Congress or the courts. The administration has made similar extravagant and dangerous arguments in other areas associated with “The War on Terror” such as its treatment of so-called “enemy combatants” and in its interpretation of international treaties that the United States has signed that the administration chooses to violate.

4. The administration has encouraged and condoned a level of cronyism, nepotism, rank opportunism and utter incompetence not seen at the national level since the Gilded Age, if then. From Iraq to Katrina recovery and everything in between, this administration has been one of the sleaziest in history. And to think - some of this administration’s apologists justified the cold shoulder Washington gave Louisiana after Katrina to our history of corruption. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

5. The administration has endorsed the use of torture against so-called “enemy combatants.” in violation of our international agreements, American statutory law, and some of our own most cherished values. The scandal of Abu Graib and the secret prison camps in Eastern Europe (whose existence the administration denied for a year before they finally came clean) are just the most visible examples of the Bush administration’s despicable record on this issue. It is scarce wonder that America’s standing in the world has declined so precipitously under this president.

Keep in mind that this is only a partial list - more charges could easily be added. For example, I have not even mentioned the government’s outrageous response to the Katrina disaster, the stonewalling of congressional investigations, or the fact that if the Bushies had not stolen the 2000 election in Florida,, the nation could have been spared two terms of GOP misrule in the first place. Space will not allow for a full accounting. The issues I have raised bring to mind another important point about the nature of this administration’s conduct: Bush has trashed the Constitution with the acquiescence of a Republican-controlled Congress who for six years did not even try to fulfill its constitutional role as a check on the power of the executive branch. Congressional Republicans acted as if their role was simply to pass the president’s program. That philosophy might be appropriate in a parliamentary system - but in the system our Framers designed, the legislative branch is expected to be a check on the executive to protect the nation from tyranny. Thankfully, the voters finally wised up to them and tossed the Republicans out as majority party in the last election.

Only two presidents -Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton - have ever been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. In both cases, the publicly stated motives for pursuing impeachment were not the real reasons that this remedy was sought. Overheated, exaggerated offenses masked intense personal animus and deep political differences between members of Congress and the President. In 1974, Richard Nixon would have been impeached had he not resigned; the case for Nixon’s impeachment was more clear-cut. Ironically, when we have in office the one president who has most brazenly assaulted the very system of checks of balances that the Framers designed to protect our republic against tyranny, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment off the table. Meanwhile, the same people who only a few years ago voted to impeach a president for lying about an extramarital affair are excusing the actions of one who lied to get us into a war. In other words, the impeachment mechanism has been deployed in a trivial case, but when a textbook case for its appropriate use is presented, most Washington politicians dance around the issue..

This galling contradiction does not speak well of a nation that prides itself on its belief in its Constitution and the rule of law. Barring some unforeseen change in the political landscape in the next few months, future generations of Americans may wonder how a president could so flagrantly violate his oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” and still be allowed to serve two full terms in office.. Political prudence dictates that discussion of impeaching this president be pushed aside. But one has to wonder what long-term damage we may be doing to our democracy by not even broaching the subject. The actions of one generation (or the failure to act) set precedents for another, leading to unforeseen consequences. Excusing Bush’s crimes against the Constitution may pave the way for an even greater tyrant in the future. History is littered with examples of civilizations fully convinced that the failures and calamities that befell other peoples could never happen to them. With respect to tyranny and fascism, IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. Not only for our sakes but for the sake of generations unborn, the gravity of the offenses of this administration require us to directly confront the issues raised by their unconstitutional conduct