posted by Damozel | SHEEHAN GIVES PELOSI AN ULTIMATUM. I see here that irritating activist Cindy Sheehan has issued an ultimatum of sorts against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.): Pelosi must introduce articles of impeachment against Bush in the next two weeks, or Cindy Sheehan will challenge her for her seat in the 2008 Congressional election. (The Washington Post) "'Democrats and Americans feel betrayed by the Democratic leadership,' Sheehan said. 'We hired them (sic) to bring an end to the war.'" (The Washington Post) Is Nancy Pelosi shaking in her fine Italian shoes? And what is that word for a person who issues scary threats in order to make government officials bend to her will? It's on the tip of my tongue.....It'll come to me.
Not that I have any particular love for Nancy Pelosi, but the notion that she might be frightened by this threat into introducing articles of impeachment is risible. For one thing, the threat pretty much precludes her from complying or seeming to comply or it will look as if she is submitting to a threat. It would set a terrible precedent and make her look like an idiot.
Also: does Sheehan want Dick Cheney to become president, or does she not know what happens if Bush is impeached?
Most Dems I know aren't keen on the notion of impeaching Bush unless Cheney goes too. And if that happens, do you know who will step into Bush's place, Cindy? Well, do you? Because I have a notion that the order of succession might be one reason for the Democrats to hesitate.
This article by Baltimore attorney Sheldon Laskin (Why Impeachment, Sadly, is a Non-Starter) points up the political realities of a double impeachment from the standpoint of Pelosi specifically and Democrats generally. .
[T]he most compelling reason why double impeachment is not realistic lies in the fact that, given the order of Presidential succession, an attempt at a double impeachment would be perceived--and spun--as a Democratic attempt to seize the White House without an election. I find myself particularly sensitive to Nancy Pelosi’s dilemma. Because she is next in line for the Presidency after Cheney, Pelosi really cannot lead, or even be seen to support, a movement to impeach Bush and Cheney. It has been twelve years since the Democrats controlled the Congress and Pelosi will be the first female Speaker ever; all eyes are on her as to how she will act. The moment she signs on to an impeachment drive, her credibility takes a big hit because of her perceived naked self-interest. This will become the issue instead of Bush's crimes. She will not risk her political reputation and Democratic gains after so many years of being in the political wilderness for an impeachment drive that would be over politically the moment she signed on to it.
Granted, Pelosi could take the issue off the table by renouncing any interest in the Presidency. But Robert Byrd, as President Pro Tempore of the Senate, is next in line. Given his position in the Democratic leadership and his passionate opposition to Bush, he is open to much the same charge of political grandstanding as is Pelosi. And his advanced age alone would make a few Congressmen and Senators reluctant to vote to impeach when Bush will be gone in no more than two years. And what if Byrd also renounces any interest in the Presidency? Under the Constitution, Condoleeza Rice is next in line; hardly a satisfactory candidate to correct the multiple constitutional abuses of the Bush Administration in which she personally participated.
The fundamental problem is that impeachment doesn't work well if the President, the Vice President, and the Secretary of State (all of whom are in the line of presidential succession) are all guilty of impeachable offenses and the Congress is controlled by the other party. Impeachment is really designed to remove one bad apple and otherwise leave the status quo unchanged, pending the next election. (The Baltimore Globe and Sentinel; emphasis mine)
Sheehan is apparently leaving the Democratic party due to its spinelessness in failing to stand up to the Bush Administration, so she presumably doesn't care about any of this; but I do; I care. We already have a sufficiency of urgent problems to resolve; unless removing Bush (a lame duck whose influence has steadily declined) is really going to speed things up, I am resigned to having him stick around to the bitter end.
While it's possible that at some point Congress might determine that impeachment is necessary, whatever the cost, the cost will inevitably be high. It can't ever be ruled out, but unless there's no other choice....no; are you kidding? President Cheney? Is that something we want to risk?
There is a further problem. I can't believe that impeaching Bush and/or other Administration officials wouldn't inevitably prevent Congress from getting anything else done for the time it takes to resolve the issues (and there seems to be no doubt that the Administration will resist it, tooth and nail.) Again, if it absolutely MUST be done, then they'll have to do it, but it isn't something Sheehan or anyone else should want unless it really is the lesser of two evils. If it happens, it will be a godawful mess.
"SMEAR TACTICS & HATRED." In threatening to take down Pelosi by taking her seat away from her if she doesn't do what Sheehan wants, Sheehan promises she'll give Pelosi "a run for her money." (The Washington Post) Oh, really? Sheehan apparently left the antiwar movement in which she'd previously been so invested (and for which she became an icon) because "she felt her efforts had been in vain and that she had endured smear tactics and hatred from the left, as well as the right".
Before she undertakes a political campaign against Pelosi, she should talk to Pelosi. Unlike Sheehan, Nancy Pelosi has actually held a political office and, it's safe to say, knows from smear tactics "and hatred from the left, as well as the right."
THE PEOPLE'S ACCOUNTABILITY MOVEMENT. It's only fair to say that Sheehan apparently hopes that Pelosi won't force Sheehan to go all political on her ass. Having rejected the Democrats because of the spinelessness of this particular lot, she is now busy with her own projects. (Yahoo News) She is involved in some sort of movement which is described in this article at Yahoo News as the "people's accountability movement." To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, I wonder what other names for it they considered and discarded as not sufficiently adroit?
I don't have a clue from reading the article what it's purpose is specifically; generally (very generally) Sheehan describes it as follows: ""Instead of talking and making accusations, we're going into communities and talking to the people who've been hurt by the Bush regime. We're finding out how we can help people."" (Yahoo News) They could help me by not doing their bit to undermine the Dems (who already have enough on their plates) or Pelosi, but I don't suppose they care about that. It's political.
I wonder if Sheehan, having abandoned the Dems to pursue her own "projects," is planning to start her own party out of this "people's accountability movement"? If so, I hope they give it some name other than the "People's Accountability Party" because the acronym spells PAP. In addition to evoking a whole other kind of smear than the sort that drove Sheehan out of the antiwar movement, it also means:
1. Soft or semiliquid food, as for infants. 2. Material lacking real value or substance: TV shows that offer nothing but pap. 3. Slang Money and favors obtained as political patronage: “self-seeking politicians primarily interested in patronage, privilege, and pap” (Fiorello H. La Guardia).(Bartleby.com)
(Take note, Cindy Sheehan and "caravan"! This has been a PSA from Buck Naked Politics. You're welcome!)
"WE PUT YOU IN POWER TO BE THE OPPOSITION TO THEM.". Sheehan's projects have included disrupting one of the House Democrats' press conferences. (Fox News; video here) Note that this was January 2007, not too terribly long after the Dems had obtained control of the House and that the discussion was evidently intended to be about ethics reform (which isn't at all an issue, of course.) Here's how Sheehan & Co. helped speed up the effort to end the war in Iraq:.
Chanting "de-escalate, investigate, troops home now," the protesters disrupted a briefing aimed at outlining priority goals when Democrats take over the House and Senate on Thursday.
Cindy Sheehan, an anti-war activist and mother of a soldier who died in Iraq, led the group to Capitol Hill to warn Democrats that party activists expect them to end the war in Iraq and confront the White House on a change in Iraq strategy.
"We didn't put you in power to work with the people that have been murdering hundreds of thousands of people since they have been in power," Sheehan said. "We put you in power to be opposition to them finally and we're the ones who put them in power." (Fox News)
Did Cindy Sheehan and her pals personally put the Dems in power? I had no idea. No wonder she feels in a position to dictate to Pelosi and feels free to force Democrats to end a press conference. Never mind that some voters might actually be concerned about issues other than Iraq and might be interested in what the House Dems have to say; Sheehan put the Dems in power and she isn't going to have them working with the Republicans, END OF STORY.
It looks as if what is loosely known as "the left"---which includes even moderate Dems like me who (initially) admired Sheehan before "we" made her a star and a media icon---has created a monster of sorts. She still has support among progressives: after her disruption of the conference, this blog---from a website of "aggressive progressives"--- gushed after the incident that she is still "the most influential woman in America!" (Democrats.com)
Of course, influence can cut both ways, and if you don't recognize the limits, it can evaporate overnight. Here's a picture from Nancy Pelosi's website of Pelosi and Sheehan together on a sofa that the Crux really, really, really wanted me to link to. It is choice. They look like bookends. Note how each mirrors the other's stiff, uncomforable posture, bug-eyed unsmiling stare at the camera, and general air of wishing to be elsewhere. Such rapport combined with such apparent disaffection has seldom been captured on camera; it reminds me of all those photographs of Prince Charles and Princess Diana during the thorniest period of their deteriorating marriage. The caption says: "Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi meets with anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan in the United States Capitol. Rep. Pelosi has repeatedly called for the Bush Administration to provide Congress with a plan providing benchmarks for determining when U.S. troops in Iraq could be brought home." Maybe their expressions were meant to express grim determination, but somehow it just doesn't read that way now, if it ever did.
IS DISILLUSIONMENT WITH THE DEMS PREMATURE? One problem I have with activists such as Sheehan is that many of them simply don't seem to understand very clearly how government works. While I too wish that the war could end now, and deplore the horrific and endless loss of life, I realize that there are limits to what Congress can do to put an end to it. I also can see that some members of Congress might feel a certain level of obligation to the Iraqis (after all, we went in there and created the power vacuum) as well as to American troops. Our system of government makes the president the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces; Congress can only do what Congress can do.
Not that I don't have my own complaints about the Dems; I certainly do. But I also know that threatening Pelosi with a challenge to her seat isn't actually going to do anything to accomplish the objectives that Sheehan says she wishes to achieve. The point at which one loses respect for activists is the point at which you can see that what they're demanding isn't reasonable and in fact may be self-defeating---i.e., at which the gesture has begun to take precedence over the alleged aims. If Sheehan feels she is being "smeared" by people who---in terms of very general goals---are on the same side, it seems to me that she ought to be asking herself how she has managed to exhaust an enormous fund of good will so quickly.
In the meantime, Pelosi has problems of her own. Though she has succeeded in uniting her party, the Senate (where Democrats have only one more seat than the Republicans) has been an obstacle to the success of the Democrats' agenda. (The Washington Post) The Democrats are beginning to draw criticism for failing to live up to the expectations of voters.
That failure has colored all of Congress, including Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership.... Now Democratic leaders worry that they must get some of the domestic agenda passed soon, to show voters they can govern, even as they are still dogged by a creative Republican resistance that has bedeviled Pelosi and her party." (The Washington Post)
I can't decide whether my failure to be disillusioned at this point reflects my political maturity or my political naivete. I do think---and this may be pure rationalization---that I am less impatient because I have a basic understanding of how the process works. I have a general idea of the powers of the three branches under the constitution and enough information about the constitution's history to be aware that the framers deliberately designed the system to be inefficient in order to balance power between the three branches and ensure that each could act as a check on the other. I also realize that there are plenty of grey areas, so that there will be---and should be---periodic struggles for dominance between the branches as one seeks to check the other's expansion of power. Finally, I realize that I still have a lot to learn about the system and am duly trying to educate myself.
A MODEST SUGGESTION. I think perhaps Americans generally---including some very angry activists from both ends of the political spectrum---would be much less angry and frustrated if they better understood the system. In my experience, most have only the vaguest of vague ideas. For this reason, you often see activists (naming no names) angrily confronting elected officials and yelling "Do me something!" when the official in question actually....can't. I mean, consider the following:
We didn't put you in power to work with the people that have been murdering hundreds of thousands of people since they have been in power," Sheehan said. "We put you in power to be opposition to them finally and we're the ones who put them in power." (Fox News)
I'm sure that Sheehan must have taken time along the way to learn how the process actually works, but you wouldn't know it from reading the above quote. For members of Congress simply to "be opposition" to the Bush Administration isn't going to bring the troops home. Members of Congress, unlike the president, have to work together if they are going to force his hand.
I actually think a lot of anger and frustration among voters over the perceived excesses and failings of one side or the other, or one branch of the other, might be somewhat diminished if the voters better understood how the system is designed. Perhaps the solution to all this fury and fractiousness and polarization really IS---as Richard Dreyfuss suggested on an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher----education of the general population in basic civics.
As always, I welcome comments. Feel free to correct me on any point.
LINKED, CITED, OR QUOTED
- Sheehan Presses Bush Impeachment (The Washington Post)
- Jonathan Weisman, Edging Away From Inner Circle, Pelosi Asserts Authority (The Washington Post)
- Cindy Poses with Nancy Pelosi (Cindy Sheehan Watch)
- Angela K. Brown, Sheehan considers challenge to Pelosi (Yahoo News)
- Sheldon H. Laskin, Why Impeachment is a Non-Starter (The Baltimore Globe and Sentinel)
- Sheehan, Iraq War Protesters Break Up House Democrats' Press Conference (Fox News)
- Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (webpages)
- Bob Fertik's blog, Cindy Sheehan Hijacks Pelosi Press Conference (Democrats.com)
- The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.) (Bartleby.com)
- U.S.Constitution.net (Checks and Balances)
- U.S. Constitution.net (Separation of Powers)
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