All About Changing Horses In Mid-stream

03/15/2006

By Paul Munnis

Please consider these political actions:

Spiro Agnew – Impeached
Richard Nixon – Impeached
William Clinton – Impeached
G.W. Bush – No Actions Taken
Richard Chaney – No Actions Taken

Is this a trend or something? Are we becoming a nation that when it disagrees with its elected officials wants to impeach them? Are we using impeachment to make inter-party warfare like the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s—always trying to get even?

It seems to be so since our Constitution does not permit other solutions such as a vote of no confidence or provide for special elections. So, we simply impeach – the Constitution does allow for that. It’s a bad trend though and it’s not healthy for America and for our future. We need to find a way to live with bad people who do bad things when they get elected by millions of voters to the office of President and Vice President of the United States. There are supposed to be checks and balances but they seem quite weak when just one Party has total control of government.

This is why Democratic leaders are not rushing to embrace Russ Feingold in his perfectly legitimate and rational pursuit of “Censure,” a form of virtual impeachment nor of John Conyers call for actual impeachment. Politicians and Constitutional scholars are seeking a third-way—an American way.

In the case of Nixon he was forced to resign under threat of arrest and prosecution. He did it to avoid that embarrassment and his successor then pardoned him. That is sort of the solution we are searching for except that Democrats don’t want Mr. Bush pardoned. We want him to eventually stand trial for war crimes, human rights violations, and illegal aggression arising from invasion of a foreign country without adequate and just cause.

Many Democrats do not want to see the G.W. Bush Presidential Library ever come to fruition. Many want his relationship with Halliburton more closely scrutinized and perhaps prosecuted for insider trading. We do not want him and Chaney to walk and get away with murder, torture, and gross negligence while flying the Christian flag.

So that is what it’s all about – justice under the law—that is to say justice obtained not justice denied.

From a pure political perspective it does not hurt the political feelings of Democrats that Chaney and Bush are no longer anything but an Administration running on empty. This has allowed Democrats to force the Congress back to running the country and doing it by making friends and getting votes from across the aisle. This is agonizingly slow to tilt back into equilibrium but even the most disgusted Democrat will admit that it is happening under the pressure of the 2006 election timetable.

Democrats of course are also more than just political animals we are also Americans and it bothers us to see an inept government holding office but yet sometimes you have to tolerate an inept government for awhile and it will be so until we can find a better solution for dealing with massive voter failure to pick a president who meets our national expectations.

Also from a political perspective there is the issue of the coming 2008 elections. The GOP fears Hillary Clinton so much they have started bashing her already and she isn’t even re-elected as a Senator as yet. If Mr. Bush resigns then somebody like John McCain will become the president without having to even initially stand for election. He will have a chance at two to three years of governance prior to the 2008 election to build up political capital. That could kill us Democrats. So why give John McCain a free token pass to be president and perhaps to also pardon Mr. Bush and Mr. Chaney? No way!

Then there is the simple realization that the devil you know is better than the devil you do not know. Sen. McCain is a “waffler” right from the start. One day he is against torture and the next day he caves in to the abuser-in-chief. Do we really want to go through another agony of GOP flip-flopping and a delay in getting the things done in government that we all feel so strongly about while a newly crowned McCain builds his political capital for 2008?

So, please pardon Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi if they aren’t throwing a champagne party for Russ Feingold and trying to oust Mr. Bush so that Senator McCain can get appointed as president. It’s not that they hate Russ—it’s not that they think Russ is all wrong about the crimes of Mr. Bush. They like Russ’s tactics but not his strategy. Even more they do not want to put America through another torrid international public trial of the President of the United States because they respect the office of president even though they do not like the man or his politics and his policies.

Help them to find a third way of dealing with Mr. Bush. We do need a solution in order to manage the problems of unwanted and unpopular behavior by presidents and vice-presidents. The older method of tarring and feathering an errant politician no longer works and impeachment must not become ordinary in America.