Republicans and Independents for Impeaching Bush and Cheney

Americans are at a strange crossroads in their relationship to their
government. Never has an administration brazenly admitted to breaking
laws, as when George Bush admitted to authorizing illegal NSA spying.
Never has a president claimed the authority to ignore so many laws
with signing statements, or held that wartime powers permanently trump
citizens’ rights. The administration is at its lowest point in
popularity to date, but there is little outrage of the kind that
topples presidents.

Before the War on Terror it was safe to say that any president would
have been impeached over a fraction of these transgressions. After
the War on Terror, anything goes, including an American president
almost proudly declaring to the world that he has authorized torture.
This is where fear has brought us. Once Bush and Cheney leave office
without incident, these precedents will be firmly in place.

The most frequently-heard arguments against impeachment are: “Just
wait, they’ll soon be out,” and “There’s not enough time.” Neither
are true. Bush and Cheney may be out, but what they have wrought will
not be. This includes vast new powers to hold Americans as “enemy
combatants,” and powers to spy without oversight. As for “there’s not
enough time,” historically most impeachments have taken place within
months, or less. Nixon resigned a mere week-and-a-half after three
articles of impeachment were adopted.

One man who is speaking out forcefully in favor of impeachment
hearings is Daniel Ellsberg. I caught up with him recently in New
Hampshire, when he was in Concord, the state capitol, for a speaking
engagement. The occasion was a day-long, standing-room-only rally in
support of an impeachment resolution wending its way through the New
Hampshire State House. The resolution, brought under arcane and
uncharted legal territory known as Jefferson’s Manual, would ask
Congress to commence impeachment hearings against Vice President Dick
Cheney immediately.

Ellsberg, of course, gained fame back in the 70s when he leaked the
Pentagon Papers. It brought the full wrath of the Nixon
administration down upon him. The Papers revealed to Americans that
the generals believed the Vietnam War could not be won, but were
throwing people’s sons into the meat grinder anyway. Ellsberg
expected for a time that he would spend the rest of his life in jail
for the leak, and he was ready to.

Over lunch Ellsberg outlined his reasons for not letting go of this
impeachment business. The NSA now has the authority to listen to
anyone, anytime, without a warrant, in the name of the War on Terror.
This includes journalists, activists of the right or the left whether
they are with the NRA, the anti-immigration Minutemen, the ACLU, or
MoveOn. Ellsberg said congressmen and journalists are surely being
listened to, and that as part of the Executive Branch, the information
the NSA gathers is a new form of power now held by that Branch, not
just the president.

If this power stands, similar but more technologically advanced than
that wielded by the East German Stasi secret police during the Cold
War, or the Russian KGB, Ellsberg said “Life will go on, there will be
weddings, there will be graduations. But whatever we are living
under, it will not be democracy.”

Impeachment hearings on Bush and Cheney before they leave office may
be our only chance to roll back these powers, says Ellsberg. That’s
because it will be difficult for Bush to claim “executive privilege”
in the context of impeachment hearings, as that would usher in shades
of Watergate. Politically that’s a bad move. Even without
impeachment running its full course, the strong legal “discovery”
process of hearings may be our last chance to find out what the NSA
has actually been doing. Officers and patriotic whistle-blowers will
have a chance to step forward.

I’m speculating, but I wondered at lunch whether Dr. Ellsberg knew of
a few of these waiting in the wings. If you have information damning
to the government, who better to ask for advice than Daniel Ellsberg?
Once Bush-Cheney leave office, the discovery process of impeachment
will not be available. We can’t have hearings on a president who
didn’t give the original orders.

Ellsberg said future presidents, of whatever party, will not likely
throw their hands over their ears and say, no, I don’t want to hear
this about that journalist, or that political opponent, as the
president is being told something of use obtained by the NSA. That is
not in the nature of presidents.

The NSA now has technology that the Stasi or the KGB could only dream
of. With the Democratic congressional leadership showing no interest
in impeachment, declaring it “off the table,” I believe it’s up to
Republicans who take their constitutional duty seriously, and who see
the Bush legacy as an albatross around their necks, to show courage in
the matter of impeachment.