Article: Failure to impeach now will irreparably damage the Republic

The Democrats were returned to power by the American people because the people demanded the ongoing criminal conduct of this administration be stopped, and that it’s resultant baseless and illegal war on Iraq be ended. But Democrats running for office engaged in a game of political brinkmanship directed from the highest levels of the Democratic Party, for perceived political gains; “Impeachment is off the table” stated Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The political game which has been engaged in was shrewdly designed to enable Democrats to evade their constitutional responsibilities based on a calculation that even were they to state their opposition to impeachment, it would improve their election chances. It was furthermore done so that any possible damage caused to their election chances by their refusal, would not be enough to keep the people from choosing the only alternative they had to the GOP rubber stamp and it’s accompanying abuse of power by the executive branch. It was cynical in the extreme, and the game continues to this day for the –perceived- longer range political benefit the DLC believes it can glean from allowing the Bush crime junket to continue two more years, hopefully –to them- further imploding the political viability of the GOP. It must end now: No one has the right to remove any constitutional legal process from the intrinsic right of the American people to maintain a society of laws.

That the Democrats stated “Impeachment is off the table” and can claim they did not promise to impeach Bush and Cheney, in no way excuses them from their constitutional obligation to do so now. The American people were offered a Hobsen’s choice in 2006, the nature of which -if allowed to continue- would result, and is resulting in continued and additional criminal activity by the administration. There exist too many grounds for a legitimate impeachment proceeding against Bush and Cheney than can even be reasonably listed here. Like organized crime, in the Bush administration the criminal conduct is not coincidental to the nature, it is the nature. I have no doubt a successful case against the Bush administration could be prosecuted under the RICO statute based on what’s already evident.

Bush’s so-called “signing statements” are alone worthy of causing his impeachment, for they evidence an open and willful refusal to recognize and abide in the law. They are a strict violation of the oath of office and are in fact nothing short of declarations of sedition against the Constitution and Republic. In addition to this, if falsifying intelligence, covering up exculpatory intelligence for the purposes of starting a major war with tens of thousands of American casualties, systematic kidnapping and torture in violation of international law, warrentless wiretapping, and retribution against anyone who exposes acts of high treason –Joe Wilson- which damage national security isn’t a long enough list of serious crimes to warrant impeachment, no crime or crimes committed by an executive ever will be. We are talking about the largest crimes ever committed in the name of the American people, with the most serious -national security, life and death- consequences in our history.

The Democrats must be forced to uphold the law and to act on behalf of a damaged American people. The crimes committed by this administration were not only against the international community and the laws to which it is constitutionally bound as signatories, but are high crimes against the American people collectively. The crimes were committed in our names. We are obligated to end them. There will be consequences of the highest magnitude if the Democratic majority in Congress continues to refuse to act.

The consequences of a failure to impeach an intrinsically and openly criminal administration only begins with the failure to hold the administration itself accountable for their crimes. The damage is structural and will be ongoing. The office of the Presidency itself, the Vice Presidency, indeed, the integrity of the whole of the American government is at stake. If impeachment is not undertaken, the damage done is not only a failure to hold the criminal accountable: it is to the legitimacy of the United States and it’s constitution itself, and will result in a permanent degradation of the credibility of the executive branch, both in the eyes of the American people, and equally importantly, in the international arena. It will lay the ground work for further abuses by future Presidents. Failure to hold the administration accountable for it’s criminal activity will result in generations of damage to the central legal principles of the Republic: That “we are a nation of laws and not men”.

The immediate consequences of a failure to impeach will be an executive branch who’s powers have been vastly extended beyond the Constitution and left to the next President to wield to our continued harm. There will be a correctly made assumption by the international community that the United States can never be trusted again to abide in it’s own stated principles in accordance with the rule of law. Abuses of power will inevitably continue under the next administration, whether it is Republican or Democrat. As was said of Nixon’s abuses –which pale in comparison- “there is a cancer on the Presidency”. The current cancer will remain and it will grow unless excised. The previous 230 years of carefully constitutionally balanced government powers which have been so severely unbalanced will remain unrestored and our Republican form of government will have been left for dead. The destruction of the Republic through this devaluation of the rule of law will inevitably continue unless Congress is forced to act now to right it.

Failure to impeach, in light of crimes against the Republic of the magnitude we’ve witnessed, also becomes more than a mere failure at some point; it also becomes an additional crime against the people and the Constitution. It is clearly being generated by what can only be seen as political corruption by Democrats who value increased political power more than the Constitution and the country. Their continued refusal to uphold the law is now becoming constitutionally criminal itself. Any Prosecutor who refuses to prosecute for a perceived increase in personal power or political gain is rightly labeled criminally corrupt himself. Impeachment must neither be an opportunity nor a privilege in a situation like this; it’s the legal obligation of duly elected representatives to end a criminal assault on the American people and their government. Neither the Democratic party or it’s leadership had or has any right to refuse to undertake the impeachment of this President, least of all to preserve perceived political gains.

The American people need to rise up and demand the Democratic party act: They must subpoena George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and other high officials and place them under oath in public hearings regarding the lies and falsified intelligence upon which they plunged this nation into a ruinous and lethal war. If they fail to act now, the American people, and Democrats in particular must in no way support the continuation of Democrats in power in 2008. As Americans, we can not afford that any President is placed into the office in it’s now constitutionally decimated condition; impeachment must be undertaken to restore the balance of powers and credibility of the United States, both abroad, and with it’s own people. The time is short and the Democratic majority have an absolute legal obligation to act now to protect us from further executive tyranny and high crimes.

The leadership of the Democratic party must be made to know that their craven and fundamentally corrupt current political calculation can and will be made to backfire if they do not change course now. I for one, will hold my representatives accountable for what’s now clearly amounting to their aiding and abetting an ongoing criminal conspiracy; Jay Inslee and Patty Murray: You’d better stop impeding the lawful removal of this administration now or be ready to clean out your offices in 2008. I will not support you under any circumstances if this continues: I will consider it criminal. To the reader, You should to.