Bush's Abuse of Power Deserves
Impeachment
NY Observer
By Joe Conason
December 26, 2005 Edition
Recklessly and audaciously, George W. Bush is driving the nation whose laws
he swore to uphold into a constitutional crisis. He has claimed the powers of a
medieval monarch and defied the other two branches of government to deny him.
Eventually, despite his party's monopoly of power, he may force the
nation to choose between his continuing degradation of basic national values
and the terrible remedy of impeachment.
Until Mr. Bush openly proclaimed as commander in chief that he can brush
aside the law, cries for impeachment were heard only on the political fringe,
although most Americans have long since realized that he misled America into
war. Much as he is disliked and disdained by liberals, even they have shown
little enthusiasm for impeachment. In addition to the obvious obstacle of a
Republican-controlled Congress, there appeared to be no firm proof of an
offense that justified such action. To mention the word was to be
dismissed—even by people who believe that this President may well have
committed "high crimes and misdemeanors.'
The partisan peepshow of the Clinton impeachment did not leave much
enthusiasm for that process. Nor would any thoughtful citizen want to risk
abusing it in the manner made infamous by Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay.
For responsible citizens, the reluctance to seek the ultimate sanction
against the President is especially strong in a time of peril. He and his
supporters could argue, quite plausibly, that to impeach him now would be
dangerous and destabilizing. His pet pundits and flacks would deploy all the
defensive arguments they scorned in 1999.
"If President Bush is totally unapologetic and says, ‘I continue
to maintain that as a wartime President I can do anything I want—I
don't need to consult any other branches,' that is an impeachable
offense. It's more dangerous than Clinton's lying under oath, because it
jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It
would set a precedent that … would lie around like a loaded gun, able to
be used indefinitely for any future occupant.'
There are politicians in both parties who know that Mr. Bush's trespasses
cannot be allowed to stand. Only a bipartisan coalition can restrain and, if
necessary, remove him. It is to be hoped that he steps back before such a
struggle becomes inevitable.
He might well be able to rally the public to his side again by denouncing
"politicians in Washington"; for "undermining national security.";
As political strategy and as public policy, the impeachment of Mr. Bush is
an unappealing prospect. (Besides, if he could be thrown out somehow, who would
want Dick Cheney to succeed him?) And yet, the actions and attitudes of this
President raise the question of how else we can preserve the bedrock principles
of a democratic republic.
Dark suspicions would be aroused by Mr. Bush's insistence on his supposed
wartime exemption from the law even if he had greater credibility than he now
possesses. Hearing a leader with his diminished reputation for honesty
announcing such claims, as he seeks to regain authority by promoting fear, it
is impossible not to imagine the worst.
The President says that if he is to protect the nation from our enemies, he
must be able to order the surveillance of American citizens without seeking the
authority of a court. He has repeatedly violated the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978, which provides very few safeguards of traditional
civil liberties. He disdains a law that permits him to order the immediate
electronic monitoring of anyone, requiring only that his officers seek a
warrant within 72 hours from a secret court that approves those requests in
almost every case and never hears an opposing brief. He claims that even those
minimal restraints are too onerous.
Why would the President instruct the Attorney General not to seek warrants
from the FISA court, as the statute requires? What did he and his aides fear
from that court's conservative judges—appointed by the late Chief Justice
William Rehnquist—who have routinely approved all but a tiny percentage
of the warrants presented to them by this and other administrations over the
past quarter-century? Which wiretaps did he expect those pliable judges to
reject?
The Bush doctrine of a President above the law and the Constitution has a
dishonorable tradition that dates back to his father's idol, Richard Nixon.
More recently, its pedigree derives from memoranda prepared by the same White
House lawyers who have told Mr. Bush that he can tear up international treaties
and American statutes that prohibit torture and protect against detention
without trial.
What has provoked fresh discussion of impeachment is the President's
admission that he has ignored the law's requirements and that he intends to
keep doing so. The impeccably conservative legal scholar and former Reagan aide
Bruce Fein explained the deep implications of the President's arrogance:
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