Here's my response to the currently recommended diary John Dean: Impeach Administration Officials.
I consider John Dean to be an "anti-impeachment" commentator in spite of the title. John Dean is recommending we resign ourselves and accept Torturer-in-Chief, George Bush's lordship and mastery of us until 2009.
No way! I piss back!
John Dean may think he's on our side this time around, but he's still unprincipled and now he's getting in the way.
Pelosi and Reid have long understood this reality, and rather than do to Bush and/or Cheney what Republicans did to Clinton - impeach him in the House merely because they had the power to do so and they wanted to tarnish him, only to lose their battle decisively in the Senate - they are simply not going to play the same game.
Impeaching Bush in the House would not be done "merely because [we have] the power to do so and [we want] to tarnish him".
Follow me over the fold...
It must be done so that we, as Democrats, Americans and human beings are not tarnished by complicity in Bush's torture and war crimes. Win or lose in the Senate, we must do our level-best to impeach Bush.
Those of us who are in touch with our principles understand this. We feel the neccessity to go forward without undermining our principles with more expedient political calculus. Expedient political calculus is the reason we're in this mess and it's not the way out of this mess.
Another point I must take issue with:
...it also would not be very good politics to do to them what was done to President Clinton...
This is nothing like what was done to Clinton. Win or lose, we must try because this is so serious, and so very unlike what Clinton did. You know it's deadly serious when you know in your bones that you must fight even when you may lose.
Everyone wants to be risk-averse, myself included. I just want to live well and be happy. But I've come out hard for accountability for Bush's war crimes. I don't do what I do on DailyKos just for enjoyment alone. Primarily, I'm protecting my freedom from those who would destroy it.
Getting the necessary two-thirds supermajority in support of impeachment in today's Senate, which is virtually evenly-divided politically, is simply not possible. With forty-nine senators of the 110th Congress members in good standing with the Republican Party, and most of them rock-ribbed conservatives, even if the House produced evidence of Cheney personally water-boarding "Gitmo" detainees in the basement of his home at the Naval Observatory, with Bush looking on approvingly, there are more than thirty-three GOP Senators who still would not vote to convict. (Senate Republicans who have no problem with torture, or with removing the right to habeas corpus, and who refused to exercise any oversight whatsoever of Bush or Cheney, are hardly going to remove these men for actions in which they too are complicit.)
This whole paragraph is irrelevant to me because I'm willing to fight even if I'm not assured of victory. That's the difference between pro-imeachment and anti-impeachment factions. Impeachment advocates are willing to fight even when we're not assured of victory. Anti-impeachment advocates only want to fight when they believe they can win.
I also happen to be very confident that we will succeed.
Americans do not want another impeachment, particularly when Bush and Cheney will be out of office in January 2009...
Who is John Dean to speak for Americans? He's a risk-averse political hack. He sure as hell doesn't speak for me. Most Americans love justice and they love a good fight. That's why action movies are so popular.
This American insists on another impeachment ASAP, especially because they will be out of office in 2009. I don't want them to run out the clock and evade justice.
John Dean concludes:
"There Is No Chance Either Bush or Cheney Will Be Removed From Office."
If you haven't got anything nice to say about impeachment, please don't say anything at all John Dean.
We don't need your blend of unprincipled political calculus, pompous crystal-ball prognostication, historical myopia, uncritical support of the new establishment.
How can one man write a book called Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush and then tell us we can't possibly impeach Bush. Investigations haven't even begun, so how can he know that we can't possibly impeach them. Talk about cognitive dissonance.
This guy is still a Republican, as far as I know. [Now I'm informed that he's an independent. He sure as hell isn't a Democrat.] He's also a paid contributor to CNN.
I don't give a flying-rat-fuck what John Dean says about impeaching Bush.