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.