House Speaker Nancy Pelosi still keeps impeachment "off the table"; she and her advisers fear that if they allow Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers to open impeachment hearings, it will rally the Republican base in defense of Bush and Cheney.Evidence? None.
As always, the argument against Pelosi comes down to a matter of words, not actions. Mere words: "Off the table." Do we have any proof -- hell, do we even have third-hand rumors -- to support Nichols' contention that the Evil Hand of Pelosi hath stopped the Righteous Wrath of Conyers?
I have repeatedly asked my readers to offer such proof. And they have offered the usual swinish reactions: Subject-switching, ad hominem arguments, sarcasm, haughty disdain, conjecture presented as fact, and so on. But when I repeat the demand for evidence, all one can ever hear is the sound of crickets chirping.
I'll say it again: The real reasons you people hate Nancy have nothing to do with deeds done in the real world. You want her to say the magic words -- and until she does, you will throw a series of puerile tantrums. The magic words mean more to you than deeds do. I suspect that you also -- on an unconscious level -- want her to have a penis. That's why Conyers doesn't incur a rage reaction, even though he won't say the magic words either, and even though his committee is where the impeachment process properly starts. (At least Cindy Sheehan got that part right.)
In fact, we know that Nancy Pelosi referred the Kucinich bill to the Judiciary Committee, a move which strikes me as an on-the-table sort of thing to do. And there it sits. Conyers, for reasons best known to Conyers, has yet to do anything with it.
Maybe he has made this decision at the behest of Nancy Pelosi. Maybe he has not. Maybe a long-term strategy is at work here, the workings of which we cannot guess because we don't yet have the facts. Maybe Conyers and Pelosi have jointly decided that an impeachment attempt would be otiose, given the political make-up of the Senate. Or maybe mere fear guides their actions and inactions. We just don't know. Unlike John Nichols, I prefer to keep my maybes separate from my definitelys.
From The Nation's web site:
Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols’s sword is the sharpest."Pffft. I hope a few of you read yesterday's piece about my evening with Gore Vidal and the progressive purists of a quarter century ago. During that encounter, I met with the man's supporters and got a behind-the-scenes snootful of their arrogant, contemptuous and manipulative attitude toward the Democratic party and the Democratic electorate. Read about that night's adventures if you want to understand why I now sneer at the gospel of progressive purity, and why I stopped supporting the impeachment movement (the movement, not the concept or the goal) when it shifted from being anti-Republican to anti-Democrat.
12 comments:
Connyers and Pelosi used the I word "before" the elections to rouse the crowd, which included Sheean..so they..all of us that want the "nasty" Bush dynasty eliminated BEFORE they completely wreck this nation, supported our Democrats. Now Pelosi refuses to support the Kucinich bill.
What more fucking "proof" do you need?
Published on Tuesday, July 24, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Congressman John Conyers Betrays the American People
by Medea Benjamin
I remember before the 2006 election being at a fundraiser in Los Angeles for the Democratic Party when one of the featured guests was Rep. John Conyers. The issue of impeachment came up and the crowed roared in approval when Conyers said that if the Democrats took control of Congress, he would become head of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and would initiate impeachment proceedings. That, he said, was one of the reasons why it was so important to go all out to get Democrats elected.
Fast forward to July 23, 2007. About 300 of us gathered at Arlington Cemetery, convened by peace mom Cindy Sheehan, to march to Cong. Conyers office to demand that seven months after coming to power, he fulfill his promise about initiating impeachment proceedings. Shouting “Conyers, Conyers need a reason? Torture, lies, war and treason,” the angry crowd packed the halls outside the Congressman’s office while Cindy, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern and former Conyers’ protégé Reverend Yearwood met with the Congressman inside.
A hour later, they emerged stone-faced and disillusioned. Cindy said that Conyers had told them that “impeachment isn’t going to happen because we don’t have the votes” and that “our only recourse was to work to get a Democrat in the White House.” The crowd booed and 45 people sat down inside and outside Conyers’ office. They were arrested by the Capitol Police as the supporters shouted “Shame on Conyers” and “Arrest Bush and Cheney, not the peacemakers.”
While the arrestees were being booked, about 40 activists visited the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We know that from the day she became Speaker, the Congresswoman has insisted that impeachment was off the table. She has refused to support H. R. 333, the bill introduced by Cong. Dennis Kucinich to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. With 13 co-sponsors, the resolution is destined to languish without ever coming to a vote, thanks to both Conyers and Pelosi.
We told Pelosi’s chief of staff, Terry McCullough, that it was totally irresponsible for the Speaker to say that impeachment was off the table. When her chief-of-staff replied that the Speaker’s priority was ending the war, not impeachment, we all insisted that the two were intertwined and certainly not mutually exclusive. We also reminded her that the people of Pelosi’s district were overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment, and that they would start looking to newly announced candidate Cindy Sheehan for representation.
The arrest of impeachment activists and their forcible eviction from Conyers’ office today is proof of the bankruptcy of the two-party system. It is shameful that Conyers and Pelosi are putting their perceived interests of their party above the Constitution, which clearly makes impeachment the remedy for dealing with presidential “high crimes and misdemeanors”. With the Democratic leadership refusing to rein in an administration run amok, it is crystal clear that we, the people, must uphold the Constitution. People’s power, like the kind in evidence today in the normally solemn halls of Congress, is our only hope.
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org).
"Connyers and Pelosi used the I word "before" the elections to rouse the crowd..."
No they did not. Stop rewriting history. Pelosi made the "off the table" remark before the elections, as she damn well should have.
You should examine your own pyschological motives. What drove you to falsify history in a distinctly Bushian fashion just now...?
"Now Pelosi refuses to support the Kucinich bill."
She referred it to the Judiciary Committee. That is where the impeachment process starts. What has she done that is in any way different from what Speaker Carl Albert did during the Nixon impeachment? Did HE support any impeachment bills before Pete Rodino did his work?
As I see it, the only difference between Nancy and Carl is that Carl was a proud penis-owner. He was therefore less easy to hate.
Cindy Sheehan, as I have demonstrated in an earlier piece (to which NO-ONE could make a fact-based counter-argument) has become a right-wing crank. As one DU commenter puts it, looks like there's a Libertarian in the woodpile.
Right wing "crankism" is precisely how Dubya got into office. Using Sheehan to get rid of Bush would be like using a nail to pry loose a nail. Wrong tool; it won't work -- and you'll end up making an even worse mess than you started with.
At any rate, this will be the LAST time anyone mentions that woman in a positive light on this blog. I am sorry for the loss she suffered, but her bereavement won't stop me from raising my voice against her nutball reactionary politics.
And as I made clear via a long piece of writing this weekend, I have HAD IT with people giving me the fucking SIBPATS lecture. I swore off that shit 25 years ago, while gobbling down a burger at Dennys.
this looks like "evidence" that a stonewall has been hastily erected around the represenitives in Congress to suffocate, paralyze, perhaps even intimidate the members to stall..at least for the present. What does it look like to you?
this is part of the posting this AM
I remember before the 2006 election being at a fundraiser in Los Angeles for the Democratic Party when one of the featured guests was Rep. John Conyers. The issue of impeachment came up and the crowed roared in approval when Conyers said that if the Democrats took control of Congress, he would become head of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and would initiate impeachment proceedings. That, he said, was one of the reasons why it was so important to go all out to get Democrats elected.
A "burger" or a "tuna melt" Joe? stop re-writing history :p
But seriously, it smacks me-- as an outside observer-- that there is some interesting similarities with how Pelosi keeps impeachment "off the table" meme, and Ahmadinejad's "off the map" meme. Something is off, that's for sure. Maybe Mahmoud needs a suit & tie ....and Nancy, a strap-on?
Oh no, Joe, you went and did it now. Your on "CodePink's" list now. Proof-schmoof! People are pissed, don't minimize their anger! We'll try not to minimize yours.
I COULD have shown that Cindy Sheehan isn't a right wing crank, simply by showing that, if crank is the term, she is a LEFT WING crank. (Personally, I think she's onto more truth than her detractors want to admit, since it tends to shatter an entire world view concerning what America has been and is now. But remember, that old story about how George Washington couldn't tell a lie, so he admitted he chopped down a cherry tree? That old story, a paean to the value of honesty, is a lie, as is much of the myth of America.)
Far enough out there, the fringes of the left and right merge over similarly to how the twist in the sides of the Mobius strip put its 'opposite' sides together. It's natural to think the far left position looks like the far right position, because it does. However, Cindy's position is far left, not far right, as you'd know if you knew leftists and what they say.
Cindy's positions are very much from the left's catechism, and she is right wing only if one considers the left wing to be right wing.
sofla
But Joe, have you forgotten? More people voted for the Democratic presidential candidates in 2000 and 2004 than voted for Bush. What more can we do?
-- AitchD as 'anonymous'
Aitch, I despair. Why do people come to this site if they are going to have a dialog with the Cannon of their imaginings as opposed to engaging the words I've actually written?
I'll say it again. Why steal elections if Both Parties Are The Same?
The SIBPATS meme renders meaningless all the coverage I gave to vote fraud in late 2004 and early 2005.
I've been watching these things a while, and I know that the SIBPATS meme always -- ALWAYS -- has worked to the benefit of the reactionaries. To paraphrase "It's a Wonderful Life": Every time a pseudo-progressive delivers the SIBPATS lecture, a Republican gets elected.
(That's an exaggeration, but the basic principle is, I think, sound.)
By the way, lee -- I never mentioned a tuna melt. A patty melt is a type of hamburger, using sourdough bread instead of a bun.
sofla: I know left wing crankism well. Left wing cranks do not call the income tax unconstitutional. That's a right-wing thang. The standard definitions of right and left haven't changed THAT much.
anon: That is the first I've seen of Conyers making that statement in 2006. I am not calling you a liar, but a proper citation would help.
I looked on CodePink's site and did not see my name mentioned. Fine by me. They ain't exactly my kind of people.
By he way: When I ask for proof that Nichols' assertion the evil Pelosi claw has stayed the hand of Conyers, what do I get from my beloved readers? Ye olde subject-switch, and the ever-popular conjecture-presented-as-fact.
You guys never disappoint!
C'mon. At least TRY to be creative. Make up an informant. Didn't you people ever see "All the President's Men"?
Picture this: A furtive meeting in the walkway between the National Galleries of Art. You spot your contact. He's wearing a red bow tie and a striped jacket, just as he said he would in his email. You recite your line:
"The Egyptian hawk is the rarest of birds."
"But not so rare as the Turkish elk," he answers.
"All right," you say through gritted teeth. "Enough games. You promised me the straight skinny on Pelosi...."
See? The story writes itself!
Joseph,
I'm with you on this. For me, the money quote comes two posts down in the Gore Vidal thing --
"we cannot undo those things unless we work within the Democratic party structure -- because in this country, power does not exist outside the major parties."
That being said, I think one is always on stronger ground when one can appreciate whatever is valid in the position of one's opponent -- or, if nothing is valid, at least the factors leading him to the position he takes.
The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 and controlled the Democratic Party from 1992 to about 2005. That's a long time, especially in the life of someone let's say in their twenties today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council
Its express purpose was to make the Democrats as much like the Republicans as possible. (Emphasize -- as possible.) But if you want to see a rather pure example of DLC-ism (and he was indeed its leader for some time) -- take a look at Joe Lieberman.
Clinton was better than a Republican, but I don't think he was so great, frankly. Gore is a different story, but Gore has learned a lot -- and changed a lot 9for the better).
Anyway, thanks to the increasing frustration, anger, and activism of rank and file Democrats, the DLC has lately lost a great deal (though by no means all) of its power and influence in the Democratic Party. I think the problem with many of your critics is that they learned their slogans from Nader and Chomsky and haven't noticed that things have been changing ever since Howard Dean became chairman of the Democratic Party. Not because of Dean alone, but because of all that went into getting him there, and the great deal more that has happened and continues to happen every day since.
I am someone that reads a lot of blog comments on many different blogs, and my growing realization is that MOST people (a) do not understand how politics, and even more generally, how strategy, psychology, public opinion, etc., etc. works. Admittedly it's not very easy to understand, because we live in a time of great change, when the Mighty Wurlitzer is not working so well and where there is this new thing called the Internet. This really does change the equation, but it's happening gradually. I'm also amazed at how many commenters are defeatists, mentally lazy, spiritless. Although it is true that the problems we face with the present maladministration are also the most extreme of this kind in American history. At least they make Iran-Contra and Watergate look mild in comparison.
But the "American people" as a whole are not such doofuses as a lot of the people who keep insisting they are.
The other problem (b), is that many people are IMPATIENT. Instant gratification would be nice, but let's face it, the world doesn't work that way. I believe Bush & Co. will get what's coming to them and will live to regret their vicious and foolhardy attempt to turn this great nation into a dictatorship.
But no one ever thought Vidal was anything other than a snooty patrician, so your (fine) exposition (of very old news and older quotes) wasn't news to your faithful, but your autobiographical stuff is cool. If you've already seen Naomi Wolf's blog on HuffPost, I'd like to know what you think: does it make you happy, sad, something in between, or are you indifferent?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/time-for-a-democracy-move_b_58507.html
It's junior-high essay quality, and it's nothing new again, but it's more good, and it's Naomi Wolf -- a beautiful, important person with the greatest all-time name.
--AitchD as 'anonymous'
Post a Comment