Peter Dyer -- Consortium News
(Editor's Note: The incoming Democratic congressional leadership seems to be putting the goal of bipartisanship ahead of the principle of accountability in dismissing out of hand the idea of impeaching President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for their negligent and criminal activities over the past six years.
Many Americans, however, are not so sure that giving Bush and Cheney a free pass is the right idea. In this guest essay, Peter Dyer looks at some of the bigger issues involved:)
Nov. 24, 2006 -- We Americans need to decide: are we a nation of laws or not? Is our Constitution still the foundation on which the United States rests or not?
On Jan. 3, 2007, the Democrats will be in control as the 110th Congress commences. New members will be sworn in, taking the oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic ...”
Few things would seem more fundamental to the support and defense of the Constitution than sanctioning those who have abused it -- as a matter of simple justice as well as a deterrent against future abuse.
Just before the Nov. 7 elections, Nancy Pelosi, who will now be the next Speaker of the House, said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that if the Democrats gained control of the House the impeachment of President Bush would be “off the table.”
But public support for impeachment has been growing. According to a poll published in Newsweek just before Ms. Pelosi took impeachment off the table, a majority of Americans may now favor it. In the spirit of bipartisanship she has decided that on the issue of impeachment, the House will ignore the public as well as the remedies which the authors of the Constitution provided for its abuse.
This is a bad idea, politically and constitutionally.
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READ MORE: Consortium News
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