Tuesday, September 26, 2006

No Impeachment?

John Dean's Inconvenient Truths

In an email interview with Truthdig managing editor Blair Golson, John Dean presents me with some unpleasant, but compelling considerations:
. . . . The only political restraint on a Democratic controlled House would be their collective good judgment. There is no question they have a duty to tell Americans what the Bush administration has been up to the past six years – and I have no doubt they will do that through aggressive oversight by all the committees of the House. But, say the Democrats win the House but not the Senate, meaning there is no chance in the world to convict Bush.

. . . .Is it not blatantly political to undertake impeachment when there is no chance of conviction?

. . . .Should impeachment be launched when a president is headed for the door, and it could take a year or more to conduct the inquiry?

. . . . .I think the issue of what is acceptable behavior for a presidency (following Bush and Cheney) should be front and center in the next election, for it is more important that voters address this subject than what could be considered an excessively political act by the House of Representatives.

. . . . if Democrats were to do what the Republicans did to Clinton – impeach merely because they had the votes to do so and because they wanted to tarnish him – it will pretty much make a nullity of the impeachment clause.

. . . .Democracy, and our constitutional machinery, is quite sturdy but they cannot withstand endless incautious political abuses.
Dean's comments are, frankly, disappointing. The prospects of the worst president in history escaping impeachment is deeply depressing.

I encourage readers to click on the link, and read Dean's comments in full.

19 comments:

  1. Impeach him. The worthless twit deserves it. I am not so sure he would not be getting off easy with impeachment.
    The military is thinking of doing some other things to him right now.
    I believe Bush is looking over his shoulder and is very nervous .
    Could he become the first president of the U.S. to be deposed.?
    I hope so.
    This guy deserves way more than impeachment.
    How about a bloodless coup.?
    It will never come to that you say.?
    How can we trust those other politicians that are known flunkies for the corporations to do the right thing.?
    They are like Bush in that they do not actually care about the American people.
    Just who is buttering their bread.

    Can Bush go on for another two years.? I doubt it.
    If the politicians won`t remove him, the military may.

    ReplyDelete
  2. LittleBill left a comment on the interview itself, I guess. I hope you can find it there.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really need to reread Sun Tzu but didn't he write something like don't go to war when you know you won't win? The unlikelihood of taking the senate is sad but if in fact the Democrats take the House the investigations they could start would surely further help remove more Republicans in Congress and help the chances of taking the White House in 2008. Bush would get away but his historical image after an in-depth, rational investigation would be hurt so badly that he would never recover

    ReplyDelete
  4. Vigilante, I respect John Dean as much as I gather you do, but there was a couple significant qualifiers in his complete statement. One was,

    ". . . .unless there is a dramatic change in public attitude . . . "

    Once we get "robust" oversight, who can say where such oversight may lead us? It just may lead us to a public belief that Bush's is
    "a dangerously out-of-control presidency"
    (Dean's words.)

    Maintain the Vigil and keep the faith.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think messenger has a point, Vigilante. The public's opinion on Nixon didn't really start to change until the Watergate Committee's hearings.

    If the Dems take the House and hold investigations and hearings, and all this stuff gets a full airing and it STILL looks like the Senate would not convict, that's one thing. But I would say the country is owed a hard look at some things before the idea of impeachment is dismissed out of hand.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow, I'm stunned by these arguments. It's like, "We might not get the logical outcome of this process so we shouldn't try." I guess principles have just been mortgaged to death in Washington. It's arguable that the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton, "on principle," as in one shouldn't lie to a grand jury, and here we have a situation where someone is arguing, "Let's ignore principle because it's inconvenient poltically." As if it wasn't then! Did Democrats make that argument at the time? Maybe I did, since it was over a PERSONAL issue for Clinton and his family. I guess it shouldn't be surprising, but it's just so crazy that when public laws are broken that actually effect EVERY AMERICAN and our SYSTEM of governance, people are turning their backs on principle. I think I want to be sick.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Urban Pink , you are under some strange spell. Wake up. Don`t you get it that this is a charade.?
    Principle.? You are dreaming.
    Has any one every mentioned that you do not live in a free and just place , and never have.?
    You are one of the brainwashed ones who believe that we still have a Democracy of and by the people.?
    Have you ever heard the word Corporatocracy.?
    Bush and Clinton are the same people.
    Both controlled by the money people.
    Divide and conquer the people with this interference of political diatribes.
    Keep people from recognizing they are pawns in a fake system of so called Democracy.
    In the mean time until real change comes, Impeach Him. The murderer.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I may be coming at this from a different direction, but my disgust for Bush due to the Iraq war is on par with the sentiment here. However, I feel that Bush is a simple man, perhaps better put as a simpleton. I saw him with Wolf Blitzer in a very conversational interview last week and it confirmed this impression. I don't think he's so much evil as misguided. He's simply not able to process the same machinations that most other world leaders can. That said, let's be realistic. That's where Dean makes valid points. A Bush impeachment means a Dick Cheney presidency. That's a fact. And that's frightening. Cheney is not stupid. He's sharp as a knife. And even more dangerous too.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Big Daddy Jeff, Saw a Wolf Blitzer interview.?

    Do you understand suggestibility, brainwashing, and such.?

    Cheney is worse.?

    You are a cog.

    ReplyDelete
  10. So I take it you favor 2 years of a Dick Cheney presidency where he will not be running for re-election and pretty much answers to nobody? Frightening.

    Because if you think we're going to have 2 successful impeachments at once when we've never even had 1 in nearly 220 years of existence then I need some of that good stuff you're smoking! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  11. CEOs get fired for much less. How come nobody is raising the issue of impeachment? President Bush has seriously failed us as a leader.

    ReplyDelete
  12. As an alternative Jeff, yes I say get rid of our political system. Lets start something that is secular/humanistic and does not betray the human spirit. There are real alternatives.
    Our system is a dead end.
    We care about money.
    Politics is all about money. You didn`t notice.?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Big Daddy Jeff actually makes a good point about having Cheney becomes president.

    Here is the food chain in the case if impeachment really gets going:

    The Vice President Richard Cheney
    Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert
    President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens
    Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
    Secretary of the Treasury John Snow
    Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
    Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
    Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton
    Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
    Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez
    Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
    Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt
    Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson
    Secretary of Transportation Norman Yoshio Mineta
    Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
    Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
    Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson
    Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff


    Lost your appetite, yet?

    ReplyDelete
  14. N.P., I would settle for President Condoleezza Rice. She would provide a facade of competence. With Bush and Cheney history, her dishonesty would be moot at least for two years.

    But I sense others in here would howl until they got President Snow.

    ReplyDelete
  15. On the occasion of the passage of Bill On Military Commissions, it occurs to me (by my count) that five out of the top seven on Non-Partisan's "menu" are 'unlawful combatants' and -- rather than being elevated to presidency --should be sent down to Gitmo.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Condi.? Come on , she is intellectually just about the most shallow and incompetent one of the whole group. She lies through her teeth.

    She also is a part of the born again front of believers that have an agenda of religious clap trap .

    Let me ask you Vigilante, what if it turns out I am right.?
    What if it turns out we do live in a 1984ish scam society run by ruthless thugs in the form of religious maniacs on both sides of our political system , as front people for the corporations.?
    What if it does turn out that we may have to turn to the military to save us from our Political system, run now not by the people , but by special interests of the corporations. The international corporations see America as a place to loot.
    Are you open to the idea that we may have to have another American Revolution.?
    Is there a possibility that you and your opposites, the republicans have been duped into participating in our corrupted society's control mechanism.
    You must see that the whole thing is run on phoniness and money.?

    ReplyDelete
  17. Mr. Sievert, Born-Again believers don't like Condi because she is pro-choice.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Are you saying that Bush does not like Condi.?
    Does being pro choice take one off the hook for advocating the mass death system we have going on in Iraq.?

    Condi is not pro life. So what.?
    She obviously is pro death for lots of innocent people that are just in the way.
    It is obvious to me that she is not a creative person. Twisted smart maybe.
    She is with Bush , or did not you notice,? defending him and praising him.?
    Sorry Soros, One issue does not work on this one.
    She is a humiliating failure as a good representative of America.
    You are not addressing the issue I am raising.
    Hey Soros do you understand that there is a fascist dictatorship ruling the country.? Condi is part of it. The congress is in the pocket of the corporations. Both sides of the political spectrum.
    Are you as smart as you think you are.? Or are you like most Americans under a deep spell.?
    Well.?

    ReplyDelete
  19. All points well made , and I might add that most anyone with a brain was aware that the war would end in a terrible disaster.
    So more disaster is on the way.

    It is becoming more clear to me that we may have to call on our military to remove Bush. It is obvious that the Congress and many politicos are there for Bush and his policies, as corporate stooges.
    Our Political system is now what I would call a failure.

    We are living in a fascist Democracy now where the people have been brainwashed with so many lies that they believe, that the future is looking cloudier and cloudier as to a real and positive change within the system.
    I think it is impossible.

    It may be time to change the big template and scrap the current system.
    We are bringing disaster to ourselves.
    Americans are the most hated and despised people currently in the world , and for good reason.

    Axis of Evil.? America, Britain, and Israel. Hands down.

    ReplyDelete