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:
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.
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.
I encourage readers to click on the link, and read Dean's comments in full.
posted by Vigilante at 9/26/2006 09:11:00 AM
19 Moderated Comments:
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.
LittleBill left a comment on the interview itself, I guess. I hope you can find it there.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Big Daddy Jeff, Saw a Wolf Blitzer interview.?
Do you understand suggestibility, brainwashing, and such.?
Cheney is worse.?
You are a cog.
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! ;)
I am a non smoker Jeff.
I am saying that our political system is a sham and you are a believer.
We have been run by the corporations since 1948 or so .
You are brainwashed to think there is a difference between Bush,Clinton et.al
Remember the warning about the military/industrialcomplex/congressional complex.?
Got news for you , it happened.
We live in a scam society run by thugs.
In this country mostly religious scum born agains and orthodox Jews. Big time scammers of how to make more money. Who do you think planned the war.? We are an axis of evil, us , Britain and Israel.
Get it.? Religious front people for the corporations
Wake up fool.
CEOs get fired for much less. How come nobody is raising the issue of impeachment? President Bush has seriously failed us as a leader.
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.?
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.
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.?
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.?
On Catch of the Day I just encountered an open letter of praise by Paulo Coelho, dated 3-Nov-03. It's very readable:
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam Hussein represents. Many of us might otherwise have forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his own people, against the Kurds and against the Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator and one of the clearest expressions of evil in today’s world.
But this is not my only reason for thanking you. During the first two months of 2003, you have shown the world a great many other important things and, therefore, deserve my gratitude.
So, remembering a poem I learned as a child, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people and their parliament are not for sale, not even for 26 billion dollars.
Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that exists between the decisions made by those in power and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it clear that neither José María Aznar nor Tony Blair give the slightest weight to or show the slightest respect for the votes they received. Aznar is perfectly capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is unmoved by the largest public demonstration to take place in England in the last thirty years.
Thank you for making it necessary for Tony Blair to go to the British parliament with a fabricated dossier written by a student ten years ago, and present this as ‘damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service’.
Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete fool of himself by showing the UN Security Council photos which, one week later, were publicly challenged by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq.
Thank you for adopting your current position and thus ensuring that, at the plenary session, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin’s anti-war speech was greeted with applause – something, as far as I know, that has only happened once before in the history of the UN, following a speech by Nelson Mandela.
Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to promote war, the normally divided Arab nations were, for the first time, at their meeting in Cairo during the last week in February, unanimous in their condemnation of any invasion.
Thank you for your rhetoric stating that ‘the UN now has a chance to demonstrate its relevance’, a statement which made even the most reluctant countries take up a position opposing any attack on Iraq.
Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, into declaring that in the 21st century, ‘a war can have a moral justification’, thus causing him to lose all credibility.
Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is currently struggling for unification; this was a warning that will not go unheeded.
Thank you for having achieved something that very few have so far managed to do in this century: the bringing together of millions of people on all continents to fight for the same idea, even though that idea is opposed to yours.
Thank you for making us feel once more that though our words may not be heard, they are at least spoken – this will make us stronger in the future.
Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalising all those who oppose your decision, because the future of the Earth belongs to the excluded.
Thank you, because, without you, we would not have realised our own ability to mobilise. It may serve no purpose this time, but it will doubtless be useful later on.
Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of war, I would like to say, as an ancient European king said to an invader: ‘May your morning be a beautiful one, may the sun shine on your soldiers’ armour, for in the afternoon, I will defeat you.’
Thank you for allowing us – an army of anonymous people filling the streets in an attempt to stop a process that is already underway – to know what it feels like to be powerless and to learn to grapple with that feeling and transform it.
So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet bring you.
Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us seriously, but know that we are listening to you and that we will not forget your words.
Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you very much.
Paulo Coelho
Remarkable date for such prescient statement.
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.
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