I'm watching a re-broadcast of my attorney--my conservative, Republican attorney--Bruce Fein on Bill Moyer's Journal on public television, discussing impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and more importantly the concept of impeachment as having a curative effect on government overreaching. PBS is running it again because both Republicans and Democrats found it such an important and invigorating discussion.
The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to hold impeachment hearings. Bobb Barr, Bruce Fein, and David King are right. Nancy Pelosi is wrong. So chew on that, those of you who have accused me of being a flaming liberal.
The Founding Fathers contemplated impeachment, and contemplated it as an organic process: the populace would discover government wrongdoing, be horrified by it, and start the impeachment ball rolling. We are well down the path, but seem stuck in the second step.
Impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis, not the cause of one. Impeachment proceedings must begin. This Administration has overreached. This is not about blackening the names of Bush and Cheney--they've done that for themselves. It's about preserving the genius of the Constitution, checks and balances, and separation of powers.
Members of Congress who are reading this, your role is critical now. The next time officials testilie, obfuscate, dodge and massage, here's the script:
"I cherish my country more than my party. Transparency is the bedrock of our government. This is what the United States is about and we are the ones who pay your paycheck. Answer this question or you're held in contempt right now."
Military commissions, warrantless wiretapping, enemy combatants, the use of torture. The precedent Bush is setting that it's okay to operate outside the law. It's not.
Thank you, Bruce. Bruce represented me back when I had no allies, when other moms gave me the cold shoulder, when I was treated as radioactive. I'm so glad to have you in my corner.