Earlier this year, we marked the time between when the Bush Administration seemed to be able to withstand any challenge to their right to govern and when the public clearly had lost confidence in the government. As we said then, in another system of government that would lead to a vote of no confidence in the Parliment and new elections would be called. As we pointed out then, that is not our system of government.
In our system of government, the People must go further than no confidence: they must move their Representatives to impeach the leaders of the Government. This higher bar has been reached only a few times in our history. In our generation, we have seen it started twice and taken to trial in the Senate once. The bar may be high, and we may risk "impeachment fatigue", but this Administration is seeking the confrontation as no other Administration before. Before impeachment, the proceeding, can begin, however, we must reach the point in our Government where the Administration is impeachable.
This series will mark the time to when that state is reached.
Target date: September 23, 2007
Point of no return: Bush's approval rating on any major poll goes below 25%.
How, then, are Representatives "moved"? Representatives are people, and they each have their own motivations. Some of these Representatives have real political considerations. The Speaker Of The House, for instance, cannot seem to want the job of President if the impeachment of both the President and Vice President is being demanded. The Constitution originally made the Vice President likely to be a political enemy of the President so as to avoid this problem. But the 12th Amendment changed that calculus. The current crisis has brought the wisdom of this change to its ultimate test.
A High Hurdle
To a lesser degree, the Majority Leader of the Senate must publically oppose impeachment to avoid it seeming like the leadership of both Houses is trying to take over the Executive Branch. But in the hypercharged media environment of 2007, that lesser degree is significant. In addition, the proximity of the Presidential campaign and the time required for the impeachment proceedings themselves would create chaos -- and chaos could throw the victory in any direction. Moreover, the legislative calendar would be taken over by the proceedings and all other legislative actions could be starved of support and attention. In effect, this Congress would be on hold and would not be able to start until the impeachment process is complete.
Finally, in this calculus, 16 Republican Senators would have to vote for impeachment and all Democratic and Independent Senators would have to vote for it as well. Every legal question could be thrown to the Courts, delaying the process further unless Congress is resolute.
Therefore, for impeachment to be worth the risk, the President and Vice President must be, in the eyes of our Representives currently in office, impeachable or the process is not worth starting.
Biting Through
the trigram above - LI - the Clinging, Fire
the trigram below - CHEN - the Arousing, Thunder
In this series, we will examine this state of impeachability, as we examined the state of no confidence in our earlier series. We move from the general populist domain of politics to the specific and practicable domain, and this domain is much less based on idealism than on practicality. Whether the state of impeachability can be reached is an open question. I believe it will be reached by late September. My reasons for this are intuitive, to begin with. In this series, I will test that intuition against the facts "on the ground" as they arise.
This hexagram represents an open mouth...with an obstruction...between the teeth. As a result the lips cannot meet. To bring them together one must bite energetically through the obstacle. Since the hexagram is made up of the trigrams for thunder and for lightning, it indicates how obstacles are forcibly removed in nature. Energetic biting through overcomes the obstacle that prevents joining of the lips; the storm with its thunder and lightning overcomes the disturbing tension in nature. Recourse to law and penalties overcomes the disturbances of harmonious social life caused by criminals and slanderers.
emphasis mine
I Ching - Hexagram 21 - Judgement
Several thresholds must be crossed for this state to occur so soon. I will examine these thresholds in detail as the series unfolds. For now, the general timeline I believe we will see goes something like this:
- July: Bush's approval ratings on Pollster.com fall solidly into the upper 20s. Congress fails to pass any major legislation as Republican Representatives and Senators attempt to work with the White House to cut deals with the Democratic leadership, and the leadership is still attempting to get major legislation done. Reid is pissed, and shows it. Pelosi is pissed and hides it. Caught between looking like vultures by calling for impeachment and looking like fools to the public, the Democratic leadership is stymied and doesn't like it. Second-quarter fundraising reports spell potential trouble for Republican House and Senate members. Iraqi Parliment goes on hiatus. Rumors of deal cutting with China, Russia and France continue. Subpeonas go unanswered and the Judiciary and Government Oversight Committees push contempt of congress resolutions to the floor. Leahy is pissed, and shows it. Waxman is pissed, and shows it. Conyers is pissed and hides it while meticulously building a case for criminal actions by the Administration. Republicans are forced to vote. All of them are pissed at the Administration for putting them in this position, and more show it every week. Republican leadership starts losing control of their caucus, but can't show it.
- August: Bush's approval ratings continue downward to the mid-20s. Congress goes on recess. During recess, the President goes on a short vacation and attempts to raise money for Republican candidates, and falls short. Republican and Democratic Representatives get an earful over the war in Iraq, health care and immigration issues. The failure of Congress on all fronts makes it a tough recess for everyone. Combined with fundraising troubles, however, Republicans have to make their final decisions about their agenda for 2008. Many decide to jetison the Administration if necessary. Thompson dominates the MSM in the Presidential race as "the Great White Hope" of the Republican party, and looks tasty for VP to conservatives. Cheney joins Gonzales as 800 pound gorillas no one wants to see anymore.
- September: Bush's approval ratings start dipping below 25%. Congress returns to media frenzy about the "Iraq report" while the White House attempts to manage expectations lower, which backfires. The real leaders in Congress, those not in the klieg lights and not in leadership (Feingold, Leahy, Conyers and Waxman), begin cutting the legs out from under their Republican colleagues at every turn. Republican leadership loses control of their caucus, start telling the White House to stay away and cutting their own deals with Democratic leaders to get some earmarks passed before the end of the year. Patreaus reports to Congress "we need more time". Nobody is listening any more. Casualties increase due to the surge, as predicted by the Pentagon. The 4,000 mark comes close or is reached, with the media starting the "surge has failed" meme. More subpeonas. Court referrals. Iraqi Parliment in disarray. Oil Law is repudiated by Iraqi legislators and Malaki is sidelined. Side deals with anyone but US oil companies are nearing completion as a stick in the eye of the United States.
In this context, impeachment becomes a real possibility; a real "way out" for the Republicans facing 2008. Pressure to dump Cheney in favor of Thompson grows privately in Representatives and publically in the media.
In other words, Cheney and Bush become impeachable. This state does not mean impeachment will proceed, and if so not immediately. That will be a different countdown, and we will have to read the tea leaves as they fall at that time.
But impeachment will begin to look like a way for Republicans to solve a lot of problems individually. Remember the Democratic "leadership" will never call for, vote for or support impeachment. They can't. The rest of the Democratic caucus will have to push for it. Most of them will see the solution to other problems collectively, and in the Presidential race.
From both sides of the aisle, impeachment will present opportunities that must be considered. This state will be the state of "impeacability", opening the door to impeachment if enough players decide it solves more problems than it causes. That will have to be a political judgement by hundreds of human beings who happen to be our Representatives. But when that decision is in front of them to be made, this Administration will practically and obviously impeachable.
The Change That Matters
Impeachment rises from the hearts of the People, and no other place. No politician wants impeachment. Politicians spend their lives attempting to gain control. Impeachment is an eruption of real forces, so it cannot be controlled. But rise it does, when no other remedy to the grievances of the people appears to release the pressure. All the measures which could be taken to do that are being ignored by all branches of our Government, amazingly so. Such is the depth of their pride and arrogance.
This Adminstration wants an eruption, a tear in the fabric of our society itself. They are fools, but fools with power. They have convinced themselves that tear in the fabric will allow a new "elect" to rise to "permanent majority". They are wrong. Tyranny may come. Liberation may come. But no "elect" will control this transition.
The Administration is unsane, like a serial killer who cannot stop killing because they must act out an internal motif no one else can see (or would want to). They cannot avoid the thrill of doing it again and again, and the unholy joy of not being stopped, driving them to the next level of audacity. Their course is set, and will not turn aside. Indeed, it will get worse.
We The People have been seduced by their words while ignoring their actions, and it is this, our sin, that tears at the heart of our democracy. We The People must face our sins, and politicians are trying to delay that moment of truth. For in that act, each of us and all us regain our sovereignty and strip away theirs.
In this series, we will examine our sins, fostered by tyrants among us but seductive enough to have tempted us, in three major themes:
- the implicit royalty of the wealthy and powerful
- the temptation to become efficient at the expense of being fair and just
- the bloodlust within all human hearts when "we" are attacked by "them" -- whatever those terms may be taken to mean -- and the irrational desire to act it out
We must face these urges, these temptations, these sins ourselves. These levers are the power the "elect" have used to shape their "culture war" phantasm and the result is a nation divided and afflicted. We must heal. We will see that making this Administration impeachable goes along with realizing we have sinned, and the desire for redemption. So it was with Watergate, but we were not allowed to fully expiate our sins then. Ford cut the process of justice short and the MSM scambled to assure us all was well -- so get back to buying everything we can get our hands on and pursuing being rich.
But the work to be done has stayed with us, and festered. This Administration is the result of that festering, and to rid ourselves of it, we must come to terms with the power we have yielded to They3 and withdraw it. Politicians sense such shifts in the hearts of the People. That is their singular skill, and it drives all they do. If such a shift happens, they will know it, and they will change.
We actually started the shift years ago. Last November, we surprised ourselves by the results of an election, but we are still not sure the change is real -- so the politicians still stay their hand, waiting for a clear signal. This Adminstration will be impeachable when the signal is clear. Let's cut out the noise and sing it out high and loud. Let us make it clear.
As this shift is primal, my target date is the fall equinox -- September 23, 2007. The ancient cycle of light and dark is primal, like the movement of tides. Such is the nature of the change in ourselves occuring now. The timing is coincidental and chosen by artistic intution. But it is chosen, and that is what matters. The work can now proceed. The working is underway. Our goal is to see that working and further it. Changes such as this do not happen on a given day. They happen and we choose days to celebrate, remember and repent of our sins.
Choose. Feel. Think. Understand. Share the redemptive power of the People as it unfolds. Come along for the ride of a generation and the turning of the tide of history.
See you soon with the first countdown diary of this series as we accelerate down the catastrophe curve, together at least in this as a nation.
Crossposted at Progressive Historians.