I bet you scoffed when I said that the progressive purists would one day turn against Kucinich. That day will come. For now, contemplate the spectacle of "progessive" hatred of Howard Dean.
Why is Dean, the one-time progressive darling, the new goat? Because he does not favor impeachment.
As my readers know, I like the idea of holding impeachment hearings in the Judiciary Commitee. That said, my readers also know that I became repulsed by the impeachment movement when it switched from being anti-Republican to anti-Democratic.
Look, there's a reason why the Republicans voted no on the question of tabling Kucinich's impeachment resolution. No, that motive was not (as David Lindorf stupidly puts it) to embarrass Nancy Pelosi. (What the hell does that phrase mean, anyways?)
The motive has everything to do with the very real possibility of a Republican recapture of the House in 2008. Pelosi and Hoyer and Conyers have little to worry about: Their seats are safe. But the Democratic majority depends on the continued presence of Democratic House members from conservative districts.
Take, for example, Representative James Altmire from the Pennsylvania 4th District. He's very good on Iraq, Medicare, SCHIP and other issues. On the other hand, he won by a slim 51% in a Republican-leaning district. If Pelosi were ever to become as "bold" as many of progressives wish, she will do so at the expense of guys like Altmire.
So the question is not "How many people nationwide favor the impeachment of Cheney?" The question is: "How many people in PA-04 favor the impeachment of Cheney?" I haven't seen any data, but I'm pretty sure that we're talking about some very different numbers.
Now consider the case of Baron Hill, a Blue Dog who won by a hair in the Indiana 9th, a very Republican District. (He won only because a Libertarian split the opposition vote.) The progressive purists want rid of the Blue Dogs, even though snubbing them relegates those seats to hard-core Republicans. Purists don't mind sacrificing power in the name of purity, since they don't really want power: They're into bitching, not governing.
I could name further examples. But you can see my point: Asking Pelosi, Dean or Hoyers to show courage is like LBJ asking General William Westmoreland to show courage. It was the grunts, not Westmoreland, who did the bleeding.
A guy like Altmire might risk a vote for the Kucinch resolution. Baron Hill almost certainly would not. Thought experiment: Let us suppose that the leadership became fervently pro-impeachment, and let us suppose that they had the means to force even the doggiest of the Blue Dogs to get with that program. What would happen? Removal in the Senate cannot occur under present circumstances, thanks to the Lieberman factor. A failed impeachment effort did not exactly help the Republicans in 1998. Voters approve of these gambits only when they work -- and right now, any attempt to get rid of Cheney cannot succeed.
What can change the situation? A new fact, a new document, a new outrage, a new witness -- something that goes beyond the points raised in the Kucinich resolution, something that re-arranges the pieces on the board.
Yes, yes, I agree -- the crimes we already know about should be more than sufficient for the exorcism of a fiend like Dick Cheney. But a chasm separates "should be" from the politically do-able.
So how will we get hold of that illuminating, incriminating new fact?
Hearings. Investigations.
Investigtions may well shake loose something startling and infuriating -- a fresh reason to hate Dick Cheney. If and when that happens, progressives should (but won't) stay on message -- the message being "Damn you, Dick Cheney!" Not: "Damn you, Nancy Pelosi!"
If that fresh new outrage comes to light, and if it gets sufficient publicity, and if the lefties don't form their traditional circular firing squad, the situation in the Senate will become more fluid, and even the Blue Dogs may become more malleable. That's when the fun begins.
Alas, I don't expect to see this scenario play out. Too many ifs -- and the third if is the least likely.
5 comments:
Joseph, you pretty much nail this one for me. Thanks.
XERXES:
And I, O wretched fortune, I was born
To crush, to desolate my ruin'd country!
... Bid them flow, bid the wild measures flow
Hollow, unmusical, the notes of grief;
They suit my fortune, and dejected state.
-- from Aeschylus' The Persians, the earliest extant play in human history.
Cannon, We are currently reenacting this tragic story with the President as Xerxes.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Joseph,
Ditto on what the first comment said.
I do believe in impeachment...but I live in the real world. It seems that a lot of the impeachment supporters do not.
In the real world, there are not enough votes to remove Bush or Cheney from office.
In the real world, the mainstream media would come down on the side of Bush/Cheney or disappear the impeachment movement (which is pretty much what they did regarding the vote to move it to committee).
One thing I have to ask, though...is there a possiblility that there is a _misconception_ about impeachment? It seems to me that many supporters of impeachment--including Dave Lindorf and David Swanson--believe that impeachment means that Bush and Cheney will immediately lose their powers and will be yanked out of office.
But that's wrong.
Impeachment is bringing charges against the political official. In short, it's step one, or rather, one step out of many. The big money rests on the Senate trial, where the evidence is presented and the vote is taken to remove the official from office.
That requires a 2/3 vote...and it ain't gonna happen in the Senate.
But the impeachment supporters--who HAVE turned it into an anti-Dem movement (notice how no one has attacked the Repubs or asked Ron Paul what he thinks about it)--seem to think that just bringing impeachment resolutions to the floor for debate is going to result in something. You'd think that nearly ten years after the last impeachment we had--purely political, by the way--we would have remembered what exactly happens in the process (and it is a long one).
The resolution HAS to go to committee, because it is from there that hearings are held and eventually Articles of Impeachment are drawn up.
Still, you're right, Joe--the hearings WILL produce a lot of juicy material. Will it be enough to sway Repubs to convict? Not sure. But it will get a lot of the Administration's dirty laundry out there. It will do what the mainstream media has failed to do--give the American people the truth about what has been going on for the past seven years.
Some say that impeachment should be "symbolic", that's all that matters. Screw that--I want substance.
The only useful reason to hold impeachment hearings at this time would be to sear into the public's consciousness the salient points of Conyers' and the Judiciary Committee's public report, "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance" (August 2006):
http://judiciary.house.gov/Media/PDFS/
DowningReport060804.pdf
That report was released as the Committee's "Minority Report" when the Republicans held the majority and controlled the damage. Incidentally, in his introduction to the report, Conyers praises "the blogosphere" for its "myriad and invaluable
contributions", and he goes on to say "it would have been impossible to assemble all of the information, sources and other materials necessary to the preparation of this Report. Whereas the so-called “mainstream media” has frequently been willing to look past the abuses of the Bush Administration, the blogosophere has proven to be a new and
important bulwark of our Nation’s first amendment freedoms." Joe! Maybe you'll be called as a witness!
The coolest thing is that the Committee won't have to rely on any classified material to make its case.
It's Conyers' task -- if he takes it on -- to pre-empt the MSM's calling the investigation a rehash of old and unproven partisan attacks because the MSM has been put on notice that they're unindicted co-conspirators, so to speak.
As you point out, impeaching Cheney isn't the goal; gaining Democratic victories and securing Congress and the White House are the larger political goals.
As usual, how the MSM covers everything tends to determine 'truth'. It's no secret that the MSM (network TV, cable, and newspapers) have been losing their audience numbers, though maybe not so much among people who still vote.
The Judiciary Committee will accuse the MSM if it relies on its August 2006 report for much of its case. Big TV news stars will be called as witnesses. Some will be sacrificed, some will be heroes, many will be chilled enough to become more like Keith and less like the lying scum who are responsible for the "crisis" and the very likely destruction of our democratic republic.
If Dan Rather testifies, it's pretty certain that he'll break down and cry. When his name appears on the witness list, there might be some strong Republican pressure to get Cheney to resign before many Republicans are put in the awkward position of defending the indefensible come election season.
During election season, the Democrats have to stay on message: universal health care, free public higher education, universal employment to repair and rebuild the infrastructure, free and universal Internet access -- those are prerequisites for surviving as a society and for regaining our independence. They're also goals that the Republicans won't espouse or dare to run against. They're just damn lucky to be unintended beneficiaries of the party that tries to help and serve everyone.
When the Republicans didn't benefit from their impeachment bid, there was an entirely different predicate: a popular president, trivial charges not amounting to high crimes against him, a very good economy, peace and prosperity, and a consistent popular resistance to impeaching Clinton that ran 2-1 against, basically a landslide of opinion against the notion.
Their dogged pursuit of impeachment when it was entirely inappropriate was clear but not yet quite consummated, when they lost badly in the mid-term election, against the precedents of history for losses in the mid-term elections for the party holding the White House. Then, failing to get the message, they rushed through an impeachment using the lame duck Congress, because if they'd waited for the new Congress to be seated in January, that new mix including more Democratic seats in the House would have likely kept impeachment articles from passing the full House vote. The GOP didn't prosper from their impeachment bid because it was very unpopular, going against a very popular president doing a fine job for trivial and transparently partisan reasons (akin to the partisan impeachment of Andrew Johnson).
In every case, these situations are about the reverse now from then. Bush is so unpopular as to be at record levels on that measure, properly so, given his vast number of impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors, including war crimes and treason. The economy is teetering, so-so at best and about to go over a cliff at the worst, and we are now losing two wars at the same time that these military and foreign policy geniuses want to involve us in a third one, which just might trigger Armageddon. We don't have a majority party in the Congress that has been trimmed of members because of their impeachment zealousness, but rather, one unexpectedly boosted into its majority status precisely to stop Bush and the GOP. And on and on.
...sofla
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