That's how many votes we need in the Senate to convict.
It one of two fundamental realities that the impeachment argument continues to ignore. When I first diaried about this last night, I was more annoyed that Scooter effin' Libby was the final straw -- these guys are up to their necks in blood, and a f*cking commutation of sentence is the bridge too far? Now, though, I see that the whole thing has come down to a supposed argument about passion vs. clarity. Those who think this isn't going to work -- especially over Scooter effin' Libby -- are being reduced, whether gently or viciously, to Vichy Dems. They (or we, depending on the time of day for me) don't have the guts to fight back, to defend the Constitution, to 'go nuclear,' to bring it on.
Tell that to Digby. Among the consequences of not convicting are, most perilously, giving all of Bush's monstrous betrayals the patina of legality.
First, a few reality checks that are less about 'passion' and more about justice. We have this thing in America called double indemnity. You impeach these SOBs while they're sitting, and the Senate presides. When found Not Guilty by reason of being Republican, they skate for the rest of their lives. Millions of lives destroyed, countless resources squandered, the best chance for a united world betrayed and murdered, and they just get to walk.
And they will be found Not Guilty as things stand. Can anyone come up with a remotely reality-based scenario where seventeen Republicans and/or Liebermans flip? I'll spot you the 49 Dems (which is barely reality-based in itself) and the awesome Bernie Sanders (obviously). Now who else do we get? Chuck Hagel, maybe. Outside chance of Arlen Specter. Can anyone name one other Republican who might actually admit the truth? Two? Fifteen?
Then, when Bush is found Not Guilty(tm GOP), we get to hear for the rest of our history that he was exonerated. Declared innocent of any wrongdoing by the system of justice set up by our Founding Fathers. Coulter will get to call us McCarthyite witch-hunters (well, more than she already does, not counting her worship of Tailgunner Joe). Fox Noise ups the ante by ranting about how MoveOn has betrayed its founding ethos -- anyone remember "Censure and Move On"? The chosen Rich White Man of the Greedy Old Patriarchs will remind everyone at every opportunity that Bush is A Good Man, cleared by his peers. Literally unimpeachable. (You know, much the way Dems have been flogging the same point about Bill, only effective.)
As for defending the Constitution...if Bush wins, forget it. Suddenly, his actions will be retroactively Constitutional. If he is found Not Guilty, everything he did was obviously legal. QED. Yes, this is patently insane, but they've patented mainstreaming insanity -- look at the torture argument, for the gods' sake. Look at the current SCOTUS and tell me they wouldn't use such a verdict as precedent. Look at Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson and tell me they wouldn't leap at the chance to double the knots on Lady Liberty's hogtie.
We can, must and will pursue legal action against this cabal of spiritual vampires. It must take place in an environment, however, where we actually have a chance of winning. Not even a huge chance, just statistically significant. I'd prefer the Hague, myself. Those who remember Billmon might recall a photoshopped pic of the Bush regime on the dock, using the Nuremberg trial as a base. The image warms my increasingly-cynical heart every time I think of it.
Now, if Libby outrage -- or any other Bush-related outrage, really -- does grow to the point where enough Republican Senators are feeling sufficiently threatened about their job security that we have a real chance of getting a conviction...then yes, hell yes and F*CK YEAH, impeach!
The sad truth, however, is that we are simply not there, and will probably not get there in time. After all, most of the real atrocities are just happening to brown people somewhere else. Only the ever-increasing number of lost American soldiers registers on the political Richter Scale here, and that 'slow drip' will never be enough to force a conviction.
IMO, Keith Olbermann struck the right tone in his latest Special Comment (go figure). If you're going to use Libby, make him the sharp end of a very long stick. Use him to drive the point home on lying us into war. Use him to drive the point home on their hatred for basic human rights. Use him to drive the point home that they're doing it again with Iran. Drive the stake all the way through Katrina cronyism and the attorney scandal and the stolen elections until even a zombie elephant can't move. Make that duck so lame it can't quack, let alone walk. Keep sticking them with that point -- hell, even use the fact that we can't convict as a weapon. "Republicans wouldn't convict Bush and Cheney if they were caught strangling Laura on live television." (Quite probably literally true, alas.)
Sometimes, life isn't fair. Republicans like to use that truth to imply that life shouldn't be fair, but that's not the point. The point is that we have to wait to prosecute if we actually want to serve liberty and justice. We have to fight with what we have, not what we wish we had. This whole process, for liberals and progressives, is about making life as fair as we can. A great deal of that fairness, unfortunately, is going to have to wait until at least 2009, but that doesn't mean we give up or let the Bushistas walk. This isn't about 'keeping our powder dry,' but not wasting our shot on a bulletproof target.
For me personally, the greatest irony in all this is that I do believe in changing reality through force of will -- I'm an unabashed New Ager. The danger in any such endeavor, however, is hubris. Reality is bigger than you. 'Wizards' who ignore that, even would-be political wizards like Dick Cheney, inevitably find themselves being curb-stomped by something far, far bigger than themselves. In Big Time Dick's case, it was the millions of Iraqis who said, when he tried to remake their land in his image, 'no you won't either.' In ours, it could easily end up being a much smaller number of people we don't have...sixty-seven.
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(/) Roland X
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." -- Martin Luther King Jr.