Saturday, July 21, 2007

Can A Dictator Be Impeached?

In "The Logic of Impeachment", Bob Parry of Consortium News dot com writes:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has taken impeachment “off the table,” in line with Official Washington’s view that trying to oust George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be an unpleasant waste of time. But there is emerging a compelling logic that an unprecedented dual impeachment might be vital to the future of the United States.
Emerging? The logic supporting impeachment was clear six years ago, and has only become clearer since then. But it's nice that more dissident journalists are starting to notice.
If some historic challenge is not made to the extraordinary assertions of power by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, the United States might lose its status as a democratic Republic based on a Constitution that adheres to the twin principles that no one is above the law and everyone is endowed with inalienable rights.
The time for that consideration is long past, in my humble estimation. The judicial system is ruined and the Obscene Court can be counted on to give this obscene president anything he demands. The Congress is cowed and bought -- between the big money lobby and the memories of anthrax and assassination, and after the DLC's betrayal of their grassroots supporters by failing to fund their most truthful candidates -- and can be counted on for a pajama party but no substantive opposition. The electoral system is ruined and there is no way to vote the bums out. In fact we voted the bums out in 2004 but they didn't leave. So where does the United States base its claim to be "a democratic Republic"?
Over the past six-plus years, Bush has trampled on these traditional concepts of liberty and the rule of law time and again, even as he professes his love of freedom and democracy. Indeed, in Bush’s world, the word “freedom” has come to define almost its classical opposite.
Six-plus years of abuse and now the "compelling logic" supporting impeachment is "emerging"?

This ain't some chump we're talking about here; Bob Parry was one of the great investigative journalists of his generation. His fearless work on the Iran/Contra scandal, and many other important national stories, caused both the AP and Newsweek to throw him overboard: "Sorry, Bob, you tell too much truth!"

Nowadays he's on his own, and he's chosen not to talk about election fraud, or 9/11 as an inside job, or false flag terror in any way at all, yet he's still doing a great job chronicling all the administration's other outrageous abuses of power -- and even without election fraud, even without any 9/11 truth, it still adds up to a compelling case for impeachment. Or at least the logic supporting such a conclusion is "emerging".

As the current outrageous abuse of power,
Bush’s latest affront to the traditional American concept of checks and balances was to bar the Justice Department from handling contempt-of-Congress complaints lodged against White House aides who have invoked executive privilege rather than testify about the politically tainted firings of nine federal prosecutors, ones who didn't measure up as "loyal Bushies."

In Bush’s view, federal prosecutors can enforce the laws only the way he sees fit – and thus once he tells a subordinate not to testify, the Justice Department has no choice but to rebuff any efforts by Congress to compel testimony.

So, the “unitary executive” gets to decide how much congressional oversight will be allowed, regardless of an existing law which makes it the duty of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to take congressional contempt citations to a grand jury.
...

Bush is daring Congress to either mount a constitutional battle or submit to his will.
Well, exactly! Bush -- that is to say, Karl Rove -- doesn't think Congress is up to the challenge, and he's probably right about that. Worse: even if Congress managed to drag such a battle into the courts, the Obscene Court stands firmly in Bush's corner, by the widest 5-4 margin anyone could ever ask for, and he -- Rove -- has nothing to fear from the judiciary.

And in the meantime the elephant fascist noisemakers are still clamoring for another domestic terror attack, just like 9/11 only worse, which would obviate any attempt -- congressional or judicial or otherwise -- to rein in the criminals who have taken over our country.

What to do, what to do? I asked this question of one of my friends recently and he said, "Well, exactly. What do you do about a dictatorship?"

Impeachment is clearly called for, but is it enough? More to the point, I suppose, is it even possible?

I don't know; that's why I'm asking: Can a dictator be impeached?