Greg Palast, among others, has called for the impeachment and removal from office of Bush for seeking to doctor the facts on Iraq before the war. Regardless of the merits of his position, I feel that it won't do any good unless two things happen: We impeach Cheney as well, and we elect a Democratic House in 2006.
Here are the problems, as listed below:
- If we impeach only Bush, then Cheney will become President. And Dick Cheney would be even worse than Bush, as he would infest Washington with his Halliburton cronies. Also, Cheney could simply nominate his own Vice President, meaning there would be yet another wingnut president if Cheney were impeached.
- If we impeach only Cheney, Bush could simply pick another Vice President.
- If we get rid of both Bush and Cheney together before 2007, Dennis Hastert would become the next president, bringing his old pal Tom DeLay ever closer to the seat of power. And Hastert would simply pick his own VP.
So, if we are to push for an impeachment, we must bring down both Bush and Cheney together. And we must wait until after the 2006 election so we can get a Democrat in power.
Waiting until 2007 has other benefits as well. By waiting until then, we can put together a complete picture of how Bush and Cheney operate and what high crimes and misdemeanors they may be guilty of. Rushing into congress right now would simply invite comparisons of partisanship; the Republicans would charge us with hypocrisy for defending Clinton while impeaching Bush and the SCLM would say that this is no different than 1998.