by Damozel (photo from Wikimedia Commons) | Remember George McGovern? He lost in a landslide to a certain Republican incumbent called "Richard Nixon." He also lost in a landslide at my South Carolina junior high school presidential straw poll. (Naturally, I voted for him).
And today, more years later than I care to count, my adolescent belief in McGovern's courage and integrity---written off in the day as teenage rebellion--- has been confirmed by the "J'accuse" he has published in The Washington Post. Calling the Bush administration the most destructive in our national history, he lays out the case for impeachment.
Impeachment, he argues, is "the rightful course of an American patriot":
As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president.
After the 1972 presidential election, I stood clear of calls to impeach President Richard M. Nixon for his misconduct during the campaign. I thought that my joining the impeachment effort would be seen as an expression of personal vengeance toward the president who had defeated me.
Today I have made a different choice. (WaPo)
McGovern acknowledges that he has little hope of any bipartisan follow-through. He says, and it is a true word, "arrow and sometimes superficial partisanship, especially among Republicans, and a lack of courage and statesmanship on the part of too many Democratic politicians." (WaPo)
So true. Where are the statesmen of yesteryear who had convictions instead of focus groups and who believed not only in the intrinsic common sense of the American people, but also in their power to persuade and their ability to educate? To quote Yeats, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of a passionate intensity."
McGovern argues that the case for impeachment of Bush and Cheney is far stronger than the case for impeaching Richard Nixon.
McGovern---remarking out that this administration's assumption of power was, from the beginning, "the produce of questionable elections that probably should have been challenged by a congressional investigation"--- says that Bush and Cheney have "derailed American democracy" and that they "are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses." (WaPo)
They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly "high crimes and misdemeanors," to use the constitutional standard....A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors. (WaPo)
Think that's a bit vague? He gets way more specific. Charging the Bush Administration with leading "a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness."
- "The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis... and laid waste their country.
- The administration has prosecuted the war at a "cost to the United States [of] $250 million a day," a cost which "is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history." (WaPo)
- Bush and Cheney began the Iraq adventure "without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law." (WaPo)
- In the course of prosecuting its war, the administration has engaged in "the abuse of prisoners, including systematic torture, in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949."(WaPo) Prisoners "scooped off the streets of Afghanistan" were shipped to Guantanamo "without benefit of our time-tested laws of habeas corpus"---a "shocking perversion." (WaPo)
- Bush and Cheney were able to lead this "once-admired, great nation fall into...a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness" because they "repeatedly deceived Congress, the press and the public into believing that Saddam Hussein had nuclear arms and other horrifying banned weapons that were an "imminent threat" to the United States."(WaPo)
- They also misled the public into believing there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11 -- "another blatant falsehood." (WaPo) "The same fear-mongering has led government spokesmen and cooperative members of the press to imply that we are at war with the entire Arab and Muslim world -- more than a billion people."(WaPo)
- Fostering "a climate of fear," they exploited the 9/11 attacks "to excuse such dangerous misbehavior as the illegal tapping of our telephones by government agents."(WaPo) Quoting former representative Elizabeth Holtzman, he reminds readers that "President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act...and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interest of national security to override our country's laws.""(WaPo)
- Though advised that Iran had no program to develop nuclear weapons, Bush "continued to lie to the country and the world," a strategy which he continues to deploy to this day to "lead us into an unjustified invasion of Iran," a scenario which "I can say with some professional knowledge and experience...would mark the end of U.S. influence in the crucial Middle East for decades."(WaPo)
- Their policies have "increased the terrorist threat and reduced the security of the United States."(WaPo) "[A]fter five years of clumsy, mistaken policies and U.S. military occupation, Iraq has become a breeding ground of terrorism and bloody civil strife."(WaPo)
- The administration scandalously mishandled, and subsequently scandalously neglected, the Katrina catastrophe. ""The veteran CNN commentator Jack Cafferty condenses it to a sentence: "I have never ever seen anything as badly bungled and poorly handled as this situation in New Orleans." Any impeachment proceeding must include a careful and critical look at the collapse of presidential leadership in response to perhaps the worst natural disaster in U.S. history.""(WaPo)
McGovern argues that impeachment---holding Bush and Cheney accountable for their actions---is essential to heal the damage they've inflicted and to restore our credibility in our own and the world's eyes.
I believe we have a chance to heal the wounds the nation has suffered in the opening decade of the 21st century. This recovery may take a generation and will depend on the election of a series of rational presidents and Congresses. At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.(WaPo)
Memeorandum has blogger reactions here.
Libby Spencer at Newshoggers:
If we're going to restore our standing in the eyes of the international community, the people must demand that we hold them accountable and impeachment is the mechanism kindly provided by our Founding Fathers for this purpose. The process is more important than the outcome. Even if it doesn't succeed before the end of the term, we will have demonstrated that we don't condone the horrible thuggery and shameless criminality of this administration and send a very clear message to the next administration that we want the executive overreach to be reversed and forever nullified. (Don't Get Mad---Impeach)(emphasis added)
Paul Rosenberg at Open Left:
A great man has spoken. Is anyone listening? (McGovern: Impeach Bush/Cheney)
DownWithTyranny!:
Let's hope Pelosi and her detestable Insider cabal are paying attention. McGovern's premise, that the Bush Regime is far worse than Nixon, should be apparent to anyone who has been paying attention since 2000 and McGovern reluctantly comes to the conclusion that the only honorable way for America to move forward is for Bush and Cheney to face impeachment. He seems as dismayed by the ruthless, narrow and blind partisanship of Republicans as by his own party's "lack of courage and statesmanship." (Bush and Cheney Should be Impeached)
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