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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 06:33:51 AM MST
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| On September 11 this year, Democrats from Beaverhead county met and decided to call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Members of the Beaverhead Democrats are drafting letters for our Congressional delegation - Rehberg, Baucus, and Tester - to that effect.
The discussion was heated. Many wanted to avoid making the statement, because they felt it would alienate voters in a conservative county where Democrats already have a hard time winning seats. Others felt like it would be a futile gesture. But no one claimed that our country's top officials weren't guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, and in the end, the call for impeachment won the day:
Following lengthy discussion, it was agreed in the meeting that emphasis in the letters should be on impeachment as a constitutional remedy to the dangerous excesses of the executive branch rather than a merely personal attack on Bush and Cheney.
"We're interested in preserving the Constitution not scoring political points," said one of the participants.
I got my hands on the draft of the letter Beaverhead Democrats are writing. In it, they present our delegation with a long list of offenses the president and his second-in-command have committed against the rule of law, international agreements, and the American people. Spying on Americans without a warrant. Misleading Congress in congressional investigations. Breaking Congressionally ratified international treaties by invading Iraq, torturing, suspending habeas corpus.
"In the conduct described above," write the authors, "George W. Bush and Richard Cheney have violated their constitutional oaths to faithfully execute their offices, and, to the best of their abilities, to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. They have violated their constitutional duty to take care that laws be faithfully executed and have arrogated excessive power to the executive branch in violation of basic constitutional principles of the separation of powers." |
| Jay Stevens :: Beaverhead Democrats urge impeachment |
| In short, I don't expect this letter to do much good. Impeachment's not even being discussed inside the Beltway, and Montana's delegation has shied away from the center of Congress' confrontation with the administration - or worse, in the case of Dennis Rehberg, who has actually enthusiastically supported the president's affronts on the American people. It's not likely that, after receiving this letter, Tester, Baucus, and Rehberg will take up impeachment and drive it through to its conclusion.
But it's what they should do. This group of Democrats - a small vial of blue paint dripped over its county canvas stained red - struggled over values and those values' conflict with the (perceived?) realities of their political situation and chose love of their country over political expediency. There's a lesson here for all of us. Even now, as Democrats push towards "the middle" on Iraq, abandoning the left, center, and moderate right in the country on the issue, even now as politicians hem and haw and stutter their way towards compromise on an issue that demands boldness and courage instead, the Beaverhead Democrats are giving us an example of what we all should do.
The nation is in political crisis because of our politicians' dislike of crisis. It's time to put aside our hesitancy on these issues tearing apart, not the people who are united in their opposition to Iraq and in their dislike of the president, but the government. It's not time for compromise. It's time for principle.
Thank you, Beaverhead Democrats. |
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