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 Editorials | Opinions | January 2008 
George McGovern's Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney
 Hal Brown - Capitol Hill Blue
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| | George McGovern on Sunday called for President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney to be impeached, saying the case for such a dramatic step "is far stronger" than it was against former disgraced president Richard Nixon. (AFP/Tim Sloan) | | |
George McGovern, sharp as a tack at age 85, isn't naive and he knows the chances of an impeachment of Bush and Cheney are slim to none. But he makes a damn good case.
I was immersed in the politics of the 1972 elections as a graduate student leader of the Social Work Department's anti-war movement at Michigan State University. Like many others of the time we considered Senator McGovern, Senator Eugene McCarthy and former Attorney General and Senator Robert Kennedy to be our heroes, the hopes for change and the end to the Vietnam War.
Of the three, only McGovern is still with us and at 85 we should take his utterances as words of wisdom from a true patriot.
I don't have much to add to what McGovern says in his Washington Post OpEd but I want to be sure readers don't miss it. Hence this column and the link here:
Why I Believe Bush Must Go - Nixon was bad, these guys are worse
The Democratic controlled House has no stomach for beginning impeachment proceedings. I believe most of the Democrats, even the much maligned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, believe both Bush and Cheney have committed the high crimes and misdemeanors the framers of the Constitution had in mind, and some they couldn't have conceived of, when writing the impeachment clause.
I think a number of congressional Republicans also believe Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached.
But the Democrats who could initiate impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, and the Democratic Senators who would eventually try them, have their eyes on the prize for 2009.
They don't want to distract the nation from the coming election, and certainly don't want to give Republicans a reason to rally around Bush and Cheney or to claim that the Democrats are putting petty vengeance above the good of the nation.
In truth, as McGovern knows, an impeachment would serve to lance a pestilent boil and begin to heal our nation.
An impeachment would serve the good of the nation, but unfortunately too many voters wouldn't see it that way.
Despite the fact that it isn't going to happen, I trust you, dear readers, will read McGovern's words.
Who could not be moved by McGovern's statement here?
At age 85, I won't be around to witness the completion of the difficult rebuilding of our sorely damaged country, but I'd like to hold on long enough to see the healing begin.
There has never been a day in my adult life when I would not have sacrificed that life to save the United States from genuine danger, such as the ones we faced when I served as a bomber pilot in World War II. We must be a great nation because from time to time, we make gigantic blunders, but so far, we have survived and recovered.
This great American isn't going to be around forever, and every column or OpEd is, I am sure, written with the knowledge that it could be his last. |
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