Rant: Time to impeach a President

The Rant
Time to impeach a President
By DOUG THOMPSON
Jan 2, 2006, 08:26

I’ve always felt impeachment is the nuclear option of politics; a drastic action we call in after all else fails. That’s why I’ve been reluctant to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

No longer. The reckless, arrogant actions of the man leave me with no choice but to consider that final solution.

Time to impeach the son of a bitch.

I don’t come to this conclusion lightly. Impeachment is a divisive process that all too often tears the country apart. Only two Presidents have actually been brought to trial before Congress under the impeachment process: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Both were impeached more for political dislike than actual crimes against the Constitution.

Richard Nixon resigned from office after the joint Congressional committee investigating Watergate voted to recommend impeachment and avoided, in all likelihood, becoming the first President to be both impeached and convicted. Resignation was a rare, honorable moment in Nixon’s tattered political career.

But we cannot expect such honor from George W. Bush. Honor is not part of his modus operandi, as absent as honesty in a career marked by lies, corruption and abuse of the public trust.

Bush’s arrogance by continuing his illegal spying on Americans by the federal government is just his latest high crime against the Constitution, a document which he blithely dismisses as “just a goddamned piece of paper.”

At the very least, Bush is a reckless, irresponsible leader, one who led this nation to invade another country in a war based on fabricated reasons, a man who has sent more than 2,000 Americans and countless Iraqi civilians to their deaths while hiding behind a rationale based on a lie.

At worst, he is a war criminal, a power-crazed despot who could go down in history as a mass murderer. History will determine the final legacy of George W. Bush and I doubt seriously that history will be kind to a political figure of his ilk.

I’m not here to deal with the possibilities of the future but instead with the realities of now and that requires swift, decisive action against a dictatorial madman who threatens all of our futures.

Six months ago, when the Downing Street Memo surfaced, I said Bush should be impeached if it was true. I later backed off. I was wrong. He needs to go. I’m not sure America can survive three more years with Bush driving the ship of state.

I’m not sure we can survive three more years of corrupt control of Congress by a party that circles the wagons to protect criminals like Tom DeLay and then drops its collective trousers, grabs its ankles and allows itself to be gleefully screwed by fatcat lobbyists and cash-rich special interest groups.

I’m not sure we can wait for the electorate to take action because the electorate has been pretty damn dumb and stupid for too long and given us too many miscreants living in the White House and wandering the halls of Congress.

Let’s start the New Year by impeaching the criminal at the top of this corrupt pyramid scheme and then work our way down through the sordid pile. Indict Vice President Dick Cheney for bribes he paid and the money he laundered while Chairman of Halliburton. Send Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to prison for insider trading. Put former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay under the jail.

Time to send a message to the cabal of greed and corruption that has taken over our government and tell them that their ass is grass and we’ve got a bunch of lawn mowers fully gassed and ready to start cutting.