...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, August 11, 2003
      ( 2:56 PM )
 
Impeachable Offenses

This week as President Bush and his closest advisors altered
stories in an ongoing effort to deflect blame about “intelligence
failures,” I am reminded of a quote by Oliver North from his Iran-
Contra testimony, “I was provided with additional input that was
radically different from the truth. I assisted in furthering that version.”

That's the start of an article by Belva Ann Prycel in the Lincoln County Weekly. Thanks to Jerome Doolittle at Bad Attitudes for great commentary and a link to the article (via Atrios).

Ms. Prycel continues:

One cannot help but ask if these false and terrifying depictions
of Iraq's destructive capabilities were really the products of
intelligence failures, or if they were part of an ongoing and
systematic policy on the part of those at the very head of
government.

Thirty years ago during the Watergate hearings, investigators
asked the simple question: "What did the president know and when
did he know it?" A more appropriate question to ask today might be
"Why didn't the president know before going to war what common
people marching in streets all over the world knew?"

She goes on to enunciate the crimes of this White House. Please read the entire article - it's worth it.

Richard Nixon faced impeachment for misusing the CIA and
the FBI, a serious abuse of presidential power. George Bush
and his administration apparently manipulated and
misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and
the public to support, a preemptive war to take control of Iraq.

For those who would give George Bush some largely
undeserved latitude, let's be clear that this was not a benign act
with no victims and no ongoing consequences. This was not a
personal impropriety, a sexual tryst or a stain on a blue dress.
This was a stain upon American democracy.

My question is - will the media who so gobbled up the and spit out the GOP's hymnbook on the Clinton impeachment be as willing to admit the vast difference of crimes and their victims? The Clinton impeachment set a horrible precedent. There shouldn't be a knee-jerk reaction to impeach a president that way ever again. But after deliberation and a full accounting, and as more facts come in showing the deliberate misleading of the American people into war, should there not be at least some discussion of the obvious? Was Nixon's misuse of the FBI and CIA to his own political ends worse than BushCo's misuse of the FBI and CIA to their own empire-building ends? The former ended with the careers of many dying on the vine. The latter is ending with the LIVES of many, MANY more dying on the vine. Can we PLEASE have some proportional amount of accountability yet?

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