Best-selling author and The Nation Washington correspondent John Nichols visited Brattleboro last week to talk on the necessity to investigate President George W. Bush and remove him from office. His new book is http://www.amazon.com/... and the book provides a hidden history of an American institution: the peoples’ right to impeach our elected leaders. The Genius of Impeachment reveals how impeachment movements played a fundemental role American history and Nichols’ book credits Vermont in his last chapter – "What then From Newfane?" - for lighting the fuse that sparked a nation-wide impeachment movement. John Nichols has been on a nationwide book tour and wanted to end it in the heart of the impeachment movement, Windham County. I caught up with Nichols after the event to talk more about the latest developments, misconceptions about impeachment, and the role Vermont plays.
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vtfinest: So how’s the tour coming along?
Nichols: Great. The first place I started was at the Wisconsin Book Festival, about 300 people attended and it was a wonderful opening. We opened with a bagpiper because of course the roots of impeachment are in Scotland. So it was wonderful and festive and that’s something I’ve tried to do throughout the tour. I’ve been in San Francisco, New York, Washington, Chicago, and other places and every place we go we try to have it be a fun event and one that sort of takes the edge of impeachment so that people realize this is not a threatening act, not some sort of fetish that you should only be talking about in the dark of night. But this is a legitimate exercise of our constitutional rights and we shouldn’t do so with apologies or anger but with joy and excitement. We’re taking back our citizenship.
vtfinest: Do you think Vermont can have a major impact on moving things in Washington and across America? How much of a role do you think Vermont plays?
Nichols: I think Vermont plays a central role because at this time, impeachment is very nascent and the process is beginning rather than finishing. What we’re going to see in the next few months are a lot of investigations in Congress. Those investigations are going to cause average Americans, who may not have paid particularly close attention to the Bush/Cheney Administration to say, "Wow. There’s some bad stuff going on there, maybe we should do something about it." But because so little is known about impeachment because it’s not taught well in our schools, because most Americans have a lot of pre-conceptions and/or misconceptions about it, there’s going to need to be a place that understands it and then it begins to embrace it and sort of takes the lead, pass the resolutions, and send the message that this is it. If people in the rest of the country see a little news article or hear something on the radio that 50 towns or a 100 towns in Vermont have voted for resolutions endorsing the impeachment of the President and Vice-president, that would inspire folks across the country to respond appropriately to what they’re starting to hear about the investigations. So I think Vermont actually has a pivotal role, this coming spring. If Vermont passes a law on additional resolutions on impeachment, you know, it’s news attention; it makes a story of it. So then I think there’s a very good chance it inspires people in other places and that gets the ball rolling. It doesn’t mean Vermont’s going to impeach the President. What it does mean is that Vermont put impeachment on the table. Nancy Pelosi says impeachment is off the table; Vermont’s the most likely place to put it on.
vtfinest: One of the things I’ve noticed people are saying is, "Well of course these resolutions are passing in Vermont, or in places like western Mass, Ithaca, NY, Madison, WI, San Francisco, CA, etc. But it’s not going to fly in states like Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, or Florida." What do you think it’s going to take for something like this to take hold in places like these?
Nichols: Well, I mean look, it is harder to get the whole country. There’s no question about that. There are going to be places that are more resistant. The south politically is extremely resistant to hold this President and Vice President to account. There’s no doubt about that and it may always be the case. But we shouldn’t be particularly worries about that. What we should be worried about is our own citizenship. What are we doing in places where we live to address the constitutional crisis created by the Bush & Cheney presidency? If our responses are to say, "Well we’re not going to do it because the south isn’t going to come along," or "We’re not going to do this because we’re not sure that Idaho is going to come along," we undermine the process! It’s our job in places that perhaps are more liberal or progressive or more dissenting to dot the I’s and cross the T’s to do the basic work and let that message out from where we live. It is true that it will be harder to sell in some places but we tell people in those places that this is what the presidency has come to, this is what we believe, and we’ll find allies. The fact of the matter is, after the PATRIOT ACT was passed, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Northampton, MA said that asking communities around the country that passed resolutions opposing the PATRIOT ACT, of course, the initial assumption was that the places that would do it would be... Brattleboro, Ithaca, Madison, Ann Arbor, or Berkeley. But you know where some of the most stringent and aggressive resolutions were passed in states like Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska and what was the impact of those resolutions? Well, the PATRIOT ACT renewal came before Congress; the representatives from Alaska were some of the most vehement opponents of renewing the PATRIOT ACT. So those citizen acts of passing those resolutions in places where nobody thought it was going to get traction, not only did the resolutions get passed but the members of Congress from those places heard what their own citizens were saying and responded appropriately by representing their citizens viewpoints and moving to oppose the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT. So I think we’re very foolish if we assume that we should write any part of the country off on this, especially as the investigations of what are the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush/Cheney administration go forward. My suspicion is there will be many people in this country that will be aghast by what they see. One of the things that is especially important to recognize is this: Some of the things that we think the President [and Veep] maybe should be impeached are different than the things that people in other places might think he should be impeached for. But when we put the package together we begin to really move something. So our anger at the war may not be parallel with people form the interior west. But their anger at warantless wiretapping, especially a lot of gun owners who were upset with the legislation, may bring them to impeachment by another route. At the end of the day, a lot of people may get there and then some people may come in simply because they don’t think the government should be spending money the way this government is spending in Iraq, where there is so much lack of accountability where a handful of corporations are making huge sums of money. That’s a pretty mainstream conservative argument, you know? You don’t steal from the treasury to enrich your friends.
vtfinest: OK, now about the Democrats. What is it that’s got into their minds that makes them think that they can’t take this issue on because they think it will hurt their chances to win the White House in 2008? You also saw the same rationale leading up to the mid-term elections this year. Why is it that they actually believe in this faulty reasoning?
Nichols: Back in the Nixon years during the Watergate impeachment the House of Representatives (which was controlled by the Democrats) raised the minimum wage, passed groundbreaking environmental laws, they passed housing laws, they got rid of a corrupt Vice President, Spiro Agnew, they drew down the Vietnam War, and they ultimately got rid of a very corrupt President. That’s a pretty good track record for a couple years. I would say if this Congress can do just that, just what was done during Watergate, I’ll be fully satisfied. So, I see no reason to fear that things are not going to get done just because people are focused on impeachment. I would remind you that impeachment is the conclusion of an accountability process and Watergate didn’t start as an impeachment process. It started as an inquiry investigation of Nixon and ultimately lead to a relatively short discussion of impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee acted relatively quickly on the issue once you got to that point and I think it’s appropriate that we might be in a similar situation that in the early months of 2007 we may see a lot of investigations and inquiries and if they are aggressive enough to get to the right place, I think you’ll start to hear a lot of Americans say, "Boy we got to do something about this." A few members of Congress will start to talk about it impeachment and we may get to something. I’m not saying for sure that we will, but it doesn’t seem to me that in any way it destabilizes the Congress or prevents it from doing other things.
vtfinest: This is one of the common things I hear people say, "There’s more important things that needs to get done first, pass minimum wage laws, protect the environment, universal health care, tax cuts for the middle class, etc., etc.
Nichols: Of course [that’s all] important but frankly if I had to choose between ending the war in Iraq and impeaching Bush, I’d end the war in Iraq! If I had to choose between a national health care plan that showed every child in this country had top line health care and every elderly person could get all the prescription medications they needed to get by, I might have to make that practical choice. But that’s not the choice we face and I would hope that I wouldn’t have to make those choices because in the end, if we don’t maintain the basic infrastructure of the Republic we don’t maintain the rule of law than the likelihood that this American experiment will survive in any kind of functional form is narrow or slim. So I think that our first duty is to defend the Republic. It’s much like if you have a home and you say, "You know I think I want to paint my house blue and I want to put some really cool decorations in front of it." But your wife says, "Yeah, but the furnace is broken down and a lot of windows are cracked." So while painting is a nice idea and putting nice Christmas decorations is a nice idea, the basic infrastructure of the house is falling apart. We should do something about that first. I think we got a point where the basic infrastructure of our Republic is really threatened and if we don’t address the core issues, the lack of the checks & balances at the federal level, the excessive power in the Executive Branch, all of the other things we do, the minor other progressive actions we do, are likely to be undermined and very hard to enact in the long term and even if we do get them enacted it will be very hard to. So I have very little patience with the suggestion that impeachment is a barrier to political or practical progress for the country. I think it’s the exact opposite. I think impeachment is the door we step through to a much more vibrant and engaged democracy. If we remove this President, if we even get close to remove this President, the energy that would go into that, the excitement that would be associated with that, the vibrant public discourse that will rise from that is very likely to have a much broader and much healthier impact on the whole of democracy than anything else we do. Look at how young people respond to impeachment. It polls much better among young people and people of color and low-income folks. I think for logical reasons these are people who often have the rule of law applied to them rather unfairly and they ask, "Well why shouldn’t it apply to the President fairly and appropriately?" So one of the things I think we re-engage a lot of people with politics is by saying, "Yes. The rules are real and they apply even to the President and you as a citizen have the right to challenge the most powerful man in the world." When you get that idea planted in their head, then the idea of going out and working for a national health care plan seems not nearly as daunting.
vtfinest: Dan DeWalt’s got a great comment to that. When people say, "Oh, there’s more important things to do than to pursue impeachment," DeWalt responds, "You mean to tell me the Democrats can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?"
Nichols: Well I think that’s exactly my line! I think that’s right! Anything that needs to be passed will be passed. The amazing thing is that I think it’s very possible that at the same time we’re doing impeachment we can also be discussing whether we should continue funding the Iraq war. I oppose continuing to fund the Iraq war and I think we shouldn’t but just enough to bring the entire troops home. But I can’t believe for a second that this Congress would say, "Oh, we’re so busy with impeachment that we can’t fund the war." If they did, I’d say fantastic. If impeachment is making the so busy that they can’t maintain the war in Iraq, so be it. The fact that impeachment has made it too busy re-new the PATRIOT ACT, I’m all for that too. And if impeachment makes it too busy to make another tax cut for the rich, then I’m with them on that too. So maybe it is time to make them take on this issue.
vtfinest: OK. One last issue: the media. Investigative journalist Robert Parry wrote information on investigations into impeachment for Richard Nixon was much easy back then because there was no right-wing media sound machine like they do today with Fox News, conservative talk radio, the Washington Times, etc.
Nichols: That’s absolutely true.
vtfinest: How would people, involved in the impeachment movement, get over that hump with all the muddying information that right wing pundits, newspapers, and cable news networks are constantly bombarding us 24/7? Can the Internet fill that gap?
Nichols: Read the Vermont Guardian! That’s your step one. If you’re not reading it you better get regular with it. But the fact is we do have an infrastructure in progressive communications in this country that, well, although irregular and perhaps imperfect at times is able to get out a lot of information out to a lot of people. The Air America Network is again, not perfect but it’s out there and in a lot of cities. Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! does immense amount of communication to a growing number of people. We have alternative weeklies, the Internet, low power radio stations and other places all over the country. If we’ve got the energy and attention of alternative media in this country, some of the core challenges of holding the executive to account and forcing the process to work as it should, we could get a lot of information out to a lot of people. Chairman Mao had an interesting line during the days of the long march where he said, "Give me three people in every village and I’ll control the country." What he meant by that is if there is 3 committed activists in every community that’s trying, then ultimately this revolution will prevail. I think that holds true to this day. Our job is not at the surface level to communicate all the information about impeachment to every citizen in America. Our job is to communicate to an activist core across the country that impeachment is possible and in fact, it is necessary and then urge them to go out and talk to their neighbors, writing letters to the Editor, pressuring local newspapers TV stations and radio stations to cover this issue. So I think it can happen from the base and the core but I think something else is in play. I think that many people in the mainstream media realize this administration has gone so far astray that it has been so irresponsible that it’s created a dangerous situation for the Republic and the country itself in regards to what the continued Iraq war is doing, to our image abroad and frankly I think, to our ability to function in many ways,. So I don’t think we should assume there will be no coverage in the mainstream media. I think that legitimate and aggressive efforts to raise the issue of impeachment will get some coverage.
vtfinest: Do you think what could happen on Town Meeting Day 2007 in Vermont will have a major impact across the nation?
Nichols: I think it depends on how many town meetings act and how noisy people are about it and how good a job the rest of us around the country are concerned about impeachment the country are pointing the attention of America to Vermont on that night in March. I was actually writing about impeachment and Vermont before last year’s Town Meeting day in 2006, doing blogs about and stuff like that but not many people were. We need to have a ton of folks talking and writing about it around the country and making this a subject we will all listen and pay attention to. The last chapter in my book is called, "What Then Newfane?" It’s an old English phrase, "What then from this far parish in this distant place?" I would hope that next March the question on the lips of at least progressives and activists across America is what then for Vermont? What message is Vermont sending? And when the message comes I hope they would turn to their neighbors, friends, and family members and say, "Do you see that Vermont voted to tell Congress to impeach the President? Maybe we should do the same thing here!" When Vermont acted last March, a lot of places around the country were inspires to act. Just think that if Vermont were to move at a much more aggressive and intense level that there will be many more communities that will be more organized in a noisier way. The attention that was garnered in 2006 was significant. The attention garnered in 2007 could be profound. And having the combination with investigations and inquiries 2 months into the new Congress ought to be starting to move a long at a pretty good clip, it might get if not a perfect storm at least there will be some clouds on the Bush horizon.
vtfinest: Thanks John!
Nichols: My pleasure!