Why Dick and Nancy Will Never be President via Impeachment
One argument I hear over and over when I talk about the need to impeach President Bush for high crimes against the Constitution is that it can never happen because “then we’d have Dick Cheney for president.”
A second argument is that impeachment could never happen because even if Bush and Cheney were removed, it would mean Nancy Pelosi would become president, and Republicans would never allow this to happen.
Some who raise these issues may be genuinely horrified at the prospect of a Cheney presidency (though we really already have that), and may also be genuine in thinking that there could never be an impeachement that would change control of the White House from one party to the other. But I get the feeling that many of those who raise these objections to impeachment simply don’t want to deal with impeaching the president. Certainly the Cheney canard has been quietly raised by many in the Democratic leadership to explain their shameful inaction in defense of the Constitution in the face of Bush’s many grave crimes and abuses of power.
So let me knock these two bogus concerns down once and for all.
First Cheney. There is a precedent here. Richard Nixon, as he faced impeachment, also had what many said was a kind of impeachment insurance: Spiro Agnew. Agnew was in some ways like Cheney–a hard-right, money-grubbing, small-minded proto-fascist. He was also different in that Cheney is embedded in the highest reaches of the corporate petro-war machine, while Agnew was a political light-weight. Cheney also seems to have a Machevellian cleverness that Agnew never had. That said, both have in common that they are profoundly disliked by the vast majority of Americans–Cheney even more so than Agnew, who at least had a robust following among the yahoo, know-nothing crowd (that’s pre-Yahoo yahoo usage).
In any event, when it became clear that Nixon was going to go down, Republican Party leaders looked aghast at the prospect of facing the voters with Agnew as the face of the Republican Party. They found a way out, by having the Justice Department indict Agnew on bribery charges. He was gone in a flash, and thus they were able, with Democratic Congressional support, to put a safe, uncontroversial place-holder into the vice president’s office, Gerald Ford, who was at the time the minority leader of the House. It made a certain sense given that had Republicans been in control of the House, Ford would have been the next in line for the presidency.
If impeachment hearings made it clear that Bush’s days in office were numbered, as I believe would certainly be the case, Republicans would be at least as concerned about being stuck with Cheney as their party leader heading into 2008 as their forebears were of having Agnew in that position. I have no doubt but that they would push him or threaten him or drive him out of office in the same way that they eliminated Agnew. They’d have several ways to do that. Cheney, who has myriad health problems, including a bionic heart and thrombosis, could simply push a little emergency escape button on his life-support system and claim he was having some heart problems and had to leave for health reasons. If he didn’t do that, there is no doubt a file lodged in the FBI somewhere with enough serious dirt on Cheney’s financial chicanery to pull him down with an indictment. He knows that, and so would almost certainly cut a deal that would allow him to skate away free. In any event, he’d be gone.
In the unlikely event that he chose to ignore the pressure, and managed to intimidate his party colleagues and the attorney general’s office into not indicting him, the other problem for Cheney is that he is so intricately involved in all of Bush’s impeachable offenses that he would surely be impeached along with the president or more likely indicted by a special prosecutor long before the president resigned or was thrown out of office.
As for Pelosi becoming president, I think it is impossible for two reasons. Firstly, if Democrats ever develop the courage and sense of principle to initiate impeachment hearings into Bush’s crimes, they, like their predecessors in 1974, will want to gain at least some Republican backing, and they could never do this if Republicans thought they might be handing the White House over early to them. Clearly they would want to make it plain that they had no intention of installing Pelosi in the White House via impeachment. I suspect that the same kind of arrangement would be made in Bush’s case as was made in Nixon’s: Republicans would be able to pick an uncontroversial, lackluster replacement for Cheney–probably someone like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH)–to take over from Cheney. (Boehner is in many ways a Gerald Ford clone–undistinguished politically and intellectually, and unlikely to win should he run for president on his own right. There is also the delightful way that his official bio is so quick to explain that his name is pronounced “Bay-nor,” and not the way one might expect it to be pronounced, which would be certain to make him the butt of late-night TV jokes the same way Ford was.)
The main thing is that it is simply not correct that the fear of a Cheney or a Pelosi presidency provides Bush with some kind of insurance against impeachment.
The only insurance Bush has against the impeachment he so richly deserves, and that a majority of Americans devoutly wish to see him receive, is a craven Democratic Party leadership, which because of a profound lack of principle, an excess of self-interested political calculation, and an astonishing misreading of the popular will, is going to any lengths to avoid doing what the Constitution demands it to do: impeach a president who poses a clear and present danger to the survival of Constitutional government and the rule of law in America.
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, whose work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net and at www.counterpunch.org . His latest book, co-authored with Barbara Olshansky, is ‘The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office’ (St. Martin¹s Press, 2006). A paperback edition will be published this May.
The problem with our country is that we don’t have any Statesman. All we have are professional political opportunists in the government and the corporate lobbies who court them. The American people are good and decent and would support an authentic statesman or stateswoman who would stand up for the rights given to all of us, in our Constitution, as citizens of America. The legal framework and the backing of the vast majority of Americans awaits someone with principles and character.
Hoa Binh
Well, I’m afraid you’ve just eliminated the entire top leadership of the Democratic Party, and a good proportion of the Congressional leadership, who have shown themselves to be almost devoid of principle and character.
There is so much calculation of advantage and checking of polls going on among this crowd that it makes one sick.
We do have one stalwart politician who has been ethical throughout his entire political career. The media has almost completely avoided mentioning his name and on the rare occasions when it can’t be avoided, have done everything possible to belittle, deride and dismiss him. I refer of course to Dennis Kucinich, who has never been credited with opposing this hellish war from the beginning, or proposing universal health care (not insurance!) or the Department of Peace (for which he was laughed out of town). Unity08 is proposing we choose our own Presidential candidate and I’ve signed on as a delegate. I will do everything in my power to make Dennis our next President. It’s time to save our country. Check out www.unity08 and help take back our country. The Democrats and Republicans need to be stopped in their tracks. They don’t even remotely represent the American people.
Sorry, that’s www.unity08.com. Just read “What we stand for” and get involved. Ralph Nader said of democracy “Use it or lose it”. We deserve better than we’re getting.
IMPEACH NOW!!! Get the ball rolling! Any investigation will indict the whole lot! I like Dave’s plan. Just follow the patten of what was done to Nixon. Maybe we don’t have to wait for January 2009 to stop this freight train of corruption and evil. Send this article to Nancy and your Democratic “representatives”. Maybe they will wake up to the reality of what they have to do.
Pelosi for President, John Warner for Vice President, and a “Lincoln” cabinet. Give the Neocons immunity — just get them out of the way — and get the Nation back to the business at hand of being American once again and solving the fine mess we’re in (if not for us then for the innocent of Iraq and Darfur). Call/write Congressional representaives and editors today, tomorrow, etc, and call for impeachment with “the deal”.
I must correct myself. I got suspicious of unity08 when as a delegate I was iformed - not asked- what 5 questions would be put to the announced candidates for President. I did some belated research, and learned that the president and CEO of unity08, Jim Jonas, has, among other crimes and misdemeanors, served as advisor to Roger Ailes of FOX News. I feel pretty stupid, but do not want to have my name associated with this group, which I now believe is a bunch of Republicans trying to recover what they can of the mess George has made of their party. I also want other people to know what I’ve learned. Obviously Dennis Kucinich didn’t have a chance with this bunch. I’m back to the only hope for our country is clean elections - for which there is a bill in Congress right now. Support that, for the politicians will do what they do. After all, Steny Hoyer’s first act as House Majority Leader was a call to K Street. And I agree with Dave Lindorff and Rebel Farmer, the only way to stop George’s train wreck is to impeach. He will simply ignore anything else and run out the clock while people die.
I don’t think it’s necessary to figure everything out in advance– strategizing, imaginating, who would be president then???
I’m sure most of the people here have lived long enough to know that sometimes you don’t know what the next step will be, until you take the first step… a plan is only a place to start. First things first: Start impeachment process. Because it is the right thing to do. Perhaps leadership will emerge through it, and we’ll all be surprised. Why do we think that we can control outcomes? The first step is making the choice to do the thing– and second step would be to begin.
So, the informed citizenry must remind our representatives that they govern only with our consent. We have more power than we know. (If we could only get over our ambivalence.) Remind your representative that you want to believe there is integrity in Washington– and that you expect them to maintain theirs. Let’s focus on the noble aspects of our human character and spirit– like courage, compassion, service, honesty, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll begin to see more of those qualities, in ourselves, in one another, and in our elected representatives. Meanwhile, forward Dave Lindorff’s article to all of them, and send Nancy two.
While you’re sending that message to Nancy, send her a note from yourself telling her “Hands off the Vermont Legislature and the People of Vermont!” Let them decide for themselves without any arm twisting from Washington whether they want to pass a Jeffersonian joint resolution demanding the start of impeachment hearings. The DNC and the Congressional leadership unconscionably sabotaged similar efforts in New Mexico and Washington. Tell her that her job is to listen to the people, not crush our popular movements and efforts at genuine democracy. And send another letter to your own representative and tell her or him you want a bill of impeachment to defend the Constitution!
Here! Here! Dave…
I have been in awe of what the Vermont voters have been able to accomplish at the State level. I will do everything I can to help you folks.
Thanks for the heads up!
As a Canadian I have to ask the obvious question: did Al Gore not win the election in 2000? Could he not be drafted to be President? After impeaching the Bushies, my guess is the American people would welcome Mr. Gore back with open arms.
Just a thought.
I’m new to the discussion list, but I read the articles in this site all the time. I liked kathyodat’s March 26th, 2007 post regarding Dennis Kucinich’s proposal for the Department of Peace. It’s definitely about time someone brought it up again. There was a similar proposal back in 1968 or ‘69 during the height of the Vietnam War by Another Mother for Peace’s co-chair, Donna Reed. Yep, that’s not a misprint; after her long-running namesake show, she became a fervent peace activist and spoke before Congress many times. She was also at the 1968 DNC and just missed getting gassed by Richard Daley’s quasifascist stormtroopers; she also angrily confronted Henry Kissinger regarding the not- so-coincidental possibility that the escalation of the war in Nixon’s term was also for oil reasons (being AMP’s meticulous researcher/factchecker, she had a vast wealth of info on her hands regarding the war). I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I brought it up because there are many people think she really was a passive June Cleaver type as portrayed on her show (which her character really wasn’t, if one compares the two). I grew up watching TDRS in syndication on Nick at Nite, but I never knew about what she did after that, because I think it’s somehow been suppressed because the powers that be want to continue to perpetuate the myths. I know many people disdain celebrities using their name for protest, but I’m not talking about the some of the “posers” of today who just want to sound off or put their brand their pretty face to cause…but there have been several famous people who actually walk(ed) the walk: the aforementioned Reed, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, and others. Just because someone is a celebrity doesn’t mean they are as vapid as a Paris or Britney. Okay, end of tangent. I’ll also be sure to check out the website kathyodat mentioned. Unfortunately, I don’t know if we’ll ever have a real election victory until the corporations have their “personhood” right revoked like before last century when they weren’t allowed to exist indefinitely, contribute money to campaigns, etc. etc. etc.
Impeachment has got to happen: and very possibly it will have to include than only Bush and Cheney. Thank you, Dave Lindorff, and I hope people will pay real attention. My own most recent argument for impeachment, “Note to U.S.: Impeach or Die,” is at http://www.ericlarsen.net/foodforthought9.1.0.2007.html
The emergency is greater than I ever thought it might become. The very republic lies in the balance, not to mention stability of the world. And time is fast running out.
Eric Larsen
http://www.ericlarsen.net