Accountability Starts at the Top: Why Bush Should Resign

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

Wrong, Mr. President.

"We got a lot of rebuilding to do.... the good  news is and it's hard for some to see it now but out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic gulf coast... out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- the guy lost his entire house -- there's going to be fantastic house. I look forward to sitting on the porch. Out of New Orleans is going to come that great city again."

This man is out of touch and making light of a national tragedy.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush should be held accountable for his failures as president, and should resign. As the political opposition, we should call for that resignation in order to begin holding our government officials at all levels accountable for their failures.

More on the flipside:

The last 30 years or so of presidential opposition has revolved around the process of impeachment. The Nixon administration was clearly guilty of high crimes, and the opposing party had enough power in Congress to hold them accountable for those crimes. Nixon resigned, and ever since then people on both sides of the political debate have tried to duplicate that feat.

Those efforts have been failures. Impeachment is a legalistic process based on a quasi-criminal standard. That means it can be easily defeated by legalistic arguments or defenses. In the case of Reagan and Iran-Contra, it was enough to find a fall guy for the officials at the top, and then get him off on a technicality, and contain the information so that impeachment was never able to gain traction. Even in the case of Clinton, who was impeached, his removal from office was impossible because people realized he hadn't committed any serious crimes and that there was nothing serious for which to hold him accountable.

It's time to realize that impeachment is not a viable process, but that we have a way of holding officials accountable. The alternative is right there in the resolution of Watergate. Nixon resigned because he could no longer effectively act as commander in chief. Arguments of policy or crimes aside, the results of his crimes had been an erosion in public confidence in government and authority in general, a climate of national division, and an inability to address the broader economic and social problems of the nation. Despite all Nixon's efforts to avoid responsibility, the nation held him responsible, and in the end it was his own party members who pushed him out the door.

Impeachment is a hard sell because it's easy to ignore with legalistic evasions, or by impugning the motives of those who call for it. It's a political process whereby the other branches of government check an executive out of control, but when the other branches are in accord with the executive, impeachment is a toothless threat.

Resignation calls for accountability. It's a recognition that while people can differ in ideology and on the morality or worthiness of certain policies, results matter. Results cut across partisanship. Whether to fund emergency response and hurricane mitigation instead of directing money to fight the war in Iraq is a political question. Arguing about it in terms of policy is an exercise in futility. But the results of that policy are a matter for public accountability, and every official in the government from the president on down is accountable for the results in New Orleans this week.

Bush has managed to avoid being held accountable for anything during his presidency, because he's always changed the subject to politics and ideas. Though our hearts are in the right place, our opposition to his policies just plays into his ideological frame of issues. The times when Bush has really taken a hit in the polls and in the media is when he's pressed on his lack of accountability and responsibility for his policies.

This is Bush's war, and this is Bush's disaster response. The former has killed thousands of Americans and Iraqis and destabilized a center of world culture and a key center of world economic activity. His neglect of the basic functions of government, like his neglect of the needs of our soldiers and the rebuilding effort in Iraq, has brought that war home. Thousands have died in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Our national energy production industry has taken a heavy blow. The culture and 300 years of history in one of our most treasured cities is in danger of being swept away, and Bush and some of his allies in Congress have done nothing to stop that threat. Bush is accountable for these failed policies. He should resign.

I do not think that Bush alone is responsible. There has been neglect of the basic infrastructure and security of Louisiana, and the rest of the country, for decades. This failure cuts across parties, and our leadership at all levels should be held accountable for doing nothing. Only those who did as much as they could within their power should be spared the political consequences. As we rebuild New Orleans and plan for the future, we should investigate who failed the people of the city and this country, and all of those who failed should be held accountable through resignation. It should be a clean and fair standard.

Accountability starts at the top, but it doesn't stop there. By holding everyone responsible for their part in this national failure, regardless of party or ideology, we ensure that the notion of accountability is restored to our government and that we can start anew with a higher standard. We can counter the idea that this is a partisan attack on one politician, which this should not be, and which it is not. We need to attack across the board the neglect and deterioration in our national fabric.

It's time to rebuild our country. Bush must resign.

•  Hell Yes

  Great arguement. There shouldn't have to be a case made, because the results are now painfully obvious. Step up to the Ownership Society Bush, and own your incompetence.

  by gregonthe28th on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 01:21:40 PM PDT

•  Nixon Resigned

  Because Barry Goldwater told him he had 50 votes against impeachment in the House, less than 1/3 in the Senate, and by the way one of the 1/3 was not Barry Goldwater's.

  Goldwater did not hide that he had explained this, though I do not remember which newspaper quoted him at the time.

  Nixon probably did not need to be told that if he were impeached and convicted he would lose his pension, his bodyguard, and his Presidential library for starters.

  It remains to be seen if he were told that if he would resign now he would be pardoned, and if he did not resign he would not be pardoned, and would be spending a good piece of the rest of the life fighting off moving from the White House to the Big House.

  by phillies on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 01:31:42 PM PDT

•  I totally agree!

  I do have a question that I hope someone can answer. I feel like an ignorant fool, but here goes:

  Where were all the congress people from LA at the time and did they ask for aid? I've seen the governor's request for aid, but I'm just wondering about the Senators and Representatives from that state. Where were they at the time of the hurricane and what did THEY do?
  

  by mauiwatchdog on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 01:36:30 PM PDT

  •  Local reps appealing for help

    I've seen them all over the news, particularly the local WWLTV news, appealing for help. From the beginning. I think in many cases some of them (Landrieu) bent over backwards to be accommodating to the federal government, and I think it's likely that some of the lack of preparation falls on local officials. If so, they should be held accountable.

    However, in holding people accountable, we should recognize that local officials are working with limited resources. New Orleans is poor, and has a history of corruption that's only just being tackled by the mayor. It could be that Mayor Nagin did all that he could without prior federal assistance. But it's just as possible that he didn't take the threat seriously enough in advance. We should find out the truth, and hold everyone accountable, Republican or Democrat.

    But we already know that Bush is responsible, and he's at the top. This is only the latest in a series of disasters for which he should be held accountable. It's time to start talking about his resignation, for the good of the country, and the resignation of anyone else found to be accountable for the failure to get timely aid to people. The only question is how to determine accountability without a relative whitewash as with the 9/11 commission.

    by seaprog on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 02:52:22 PM PDT

•  The CEO President...

  Good argument.  One thing I've been thinking about, but it's too small a thought to diary:

  Bush likes to claim he's a CEO President.  Can you think of one Fortune 500 company where the CEO wouldn't get the axe for something like this?  Carly Fiorina got the chop for problems in H&P's internal organisation.  But she didn't lose the whole printer division?  If the USA was a company, the shareholders and board would be ensuring Bush was clearing his desk right now.

  by magnus on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 02:44:10 PM PDT

•  there's a march in DC later this month...

  Every tee shirt, chant and banner should read "Bush Must Resign." It has to happen, and it has to happen now.

  I'm no radical. I'm a moderate and a realist and after decades working in the media I like to think I have a pretty good sense for what sort of traffic the zeitgeist will bear. And despite all this administration's failures and deceptions and indifferent-to-contemptuous policies and borderline criminal conduct in any number of instances, you'd never hear me calling for anything like this because it was clear that for the majority of mainstream Americans -- our nation's great and relatively prosperous and mostly silent center -- nothing that has happened during Bush's reign was shocking or unacceptable enough to trump the basic post-9/11 meme that Rove and his minions put out: "Bush will protect you. The Democrats are too weak to lead in the age of terrorism."

  This is different. As numerous DKos posters and diarists have eloquently noted, Katrina has torn a gaping hole in Rove's propoganda screen. There is an opportunity here, and it must be taken. Today's GOP, Bush's GOP, Bush's version of American government, has, for this one moment, been laid bare in all its hypocritical, incompetent, bloody, devastating reality.

  And that leaves America with a choice. We can either choose to see this reality for what it is, and demand accountability -- we can either demand that Bush resign, loudly and resolutely, until the entire world hears us, regardless of what the President actually does in response -- or we can let the moment pass, which to my mind is tantamount to accepting that what happened in New Orleans is acceptable governance, acceptable treatment of American citzens, an acceptable version of the social contract between taxpayers and the government they pay for, an acceptable version of the implicit moral contract by which we all live with each other.

  And beyond this acceptance, to my mind -- beyond an acceptance of New Orleans '05 as something Americans can live with -- lies irrevocable national decline.

  These are not words written by a radical left-wing partisan -- far from it, as I hope my fellow Kossovians will come to know if and when I roll up my sleeves and post further. They are words written by someone who, over the years, has taken issue with Democratic policies roughly as often as I've taken issue with Republican policies, someone who has even (shudder) voted for Republicans on several occasions and not regretted it, someone who thinks there is much intellectual, practical and ethical benefit to be gained by integrating some moderate version of the libertarian critique of modern democracy into our actual belief systems.

  But to the horror of New Orleans, in the hearts of thinking, feeling, caring, patriotic Americans of all political stripes, there can only be one response: Bush must resign. Spreading that meme -- the meme that says this man and his White House have now stepped beyond the pale of the acceptable -- is essential to the future of this country. The great middle class must be hit in the forehead with the 2-by-4 of moral outrage. This one can't slip under the bridge. America has reached a crossroads.

  It must begin with the march in Washington three weeks hence. Spread the word: all the banners must read "Bush Must Resign."

  by Reviser on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 05:53:18 PM PDT

  •  Such eloquence

    Thank you.

    by seaprog on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 06:44:00 PM PDT

    •  thank you...

      Your diary read my mind. This is THE meme, and it has to start with the march in DC. I have a close friend's wedding to attend or I'd fly in from CA.

      Keep up the good fight.

      by Reviser on Sat Sep 03, 2005 at 07:01:59 PM PDT