The Impeachment Of Dick Cheney

Public perception can beat the shit out of political nuance. The Bush Republicans know this and they have abused it for their own nefarious ends. The Democrats, on the other hand, have somehow overlooked this very basic rule of 21st Century American politics, which is a shame since they would more often than not use it for the betterment of the nation.

After all, one year ago yesterday, we elected the Democrats in overwhelming numbers to amplify our screaming voices to a decibel loud enough to penetrate the unchecked corridors of power in Washington -- we hired this party to speak for us and to use this expressed authority to end the war and to hold this historically unpopular executive regime accountable.

To date and with the exception of some admirable investigations by a few standout lawmakers, the Democrats have done nothing to make good on their mandate from you and me.

It was yesterday, on the one year anniversary of the collapse of Karl Rove's thousand-year Reich, when the Democrats subjected themselves to both public embarrassment and public disgrace, and each within a few hours of the other.

The public disgrace was naturally Senator Schumer's and Senator Feinstein's votes to endorse the Bush administration's pro-torture policy. Make no mistake, despite their wet-bread excuses, that's what they did, say nothing of their endorsement of the regime's unitary executive theory. The reality of the committee vote -- the Democrats' failure to hold their voter-mandated high ground -- is what history will remember. Not the excuses.

As for the public embarrassment, I'm referring of course to the floor vote on whether to bury a resolution calling for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. It was a one act tragic-comedy about how fucked up and bizarre our nation has become this decade -- all of it concentrated into a single hour of legislative insanity on C-SPAN.

Vice President Dick Cheney: the most subversive political villain of our time was let off the hook yesterday and the Democrats did all of the heavy lifting to make it happen. Dick Cheney: a man who has proudly committed innumerable high crimes, among them a trillion dollar fraud perpetrated upon the American people and the world -- a fraud which has resulted in nearly 30,000 American casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties. And now he's trying it again with Iran.

Yet there was Steny Hoyer desperately trying to bury this thing; the Republicans, meantime, overwhelmingly voting in favor of the resolution -- daring the Democrats to make it real.

Sure, you and I understand the backwards strategy behind the political theater. The Republicans thought that a debate on the impeachment of Dick Cheney would embarrass the Democrats. Run away! Run away! They said it'll embarrass us, so I guess it will! Run away!

But this begs the question, what made them believe they'd be embarrassed by the clown-car party of Brownie, Mark Foley, Larry Craig and Alberto Gonzales? Easy. Congressman Boehner made them believe it when he strategically rallied enough GOP votes to force a debate. They literally and brazenly dared the Democrats to allow an impeachment debate on the House floor. See, the Republicans still hold a collection of Democratic balls inside a cryogenic flask hidden somewhere on the Mall.

If only the Democrats were attentive enough to the people to realize that a majority of Americans, including a majority of independent voters, support the impeachment of Dick Cheney, they would've treated the resolution with a little more respect. If they acknowledged their mandate and discarded their predictably impotent political habits, they would have had the mettle to at least debate the resolution and entered into the record their collective objections to the vice president's malfeasance, as well as forced into the record the Republican Party's inexplicable support for the man's attempt to undermine their authority. History demands this.

Instead, by engaging in such an awkwardly amateurish fire drill on the floor of the House, Hoyer managed to inject his misguided capitulation into the national debate. He might not know this, but there exists cable news and internet blogs, both thirsting for material. Now, millions of people know that the House Democrats dropped their short pants and stumbled away from the task of holding the vice president accountable -- their trousers bunched around their ankles restricting normal locomotion -- simply because the Republicans dared them to act.

And so in trying to avoid a so-called public embarrassment, they publicly embarrassed themselves anyway.

The average voter doesn't have the time or the patience to analyze the bullshit parliamentary chess match -- the twisted Möbius Loop Beltway routine of asinus asinum fricat. What people know is that Congressman Kucinich introduced a resolution, symbolic or not, to impeach Dick Cheney, and the Democratic leadership crumbled under the weight of a Republican dare -- the House majority leader barely mustering the hand-eye coordination to kill it.

This is what you get when you acquiesce to the Bush Republicans. Under the new rules of American politics, Bush Republicans don't compromise. They don't meet anyone halfway on the important issues. They push back even harder. Popularity doesn't matter. Polls don't matter. To the neocons and Bush Republicans, logic, compassion, reason and rationality are the stuff of the "faggy" left wing.

When the Democrats acquiesce on torture or impeachment or anything that might reunite them with their balls, they're only succeeding in begging the right's aggression. There won't be any favors returned from the Bush/Cheney right wing. I don't think the Democrats fully understand who they're dealing with. And if they do, well then, how dare they play along. How dare they patronize us with I'm against this but I'm voting for it because I'm smart and important and you wouldn't understand anyway.

You stand up and vote NO on torture, Senator Schumer. You allow a debate about impeaching the vice president, Congressman Hoyer. And you sure as shit don't vote to support the administration's Iran policy, Senator Clinton.

In other words, compromising with the White House won't make the president go all limp and soupy -- it will in fact make him louder and more petulant next time around (more from Kos and AmericaBlog here). So please -- by the power of Grayskull -- stop him! We're begging now. I will be satisfied if I never hear his little-man voice and crackly fake twang ever again -- unless, of course, he's saying, "I will resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow."

Beyond that, and in the awesome words of Han Solo, "Shut him up or shut him down!"

That's what the American people are expecting. Any failure on that score leaves the Democrats in this pathetic ass-up submissive posture. When it comes down to choice of nuance versus aggression, the answer has to be aggression. Take on those bastards with the fury and tenacity these historically imperative issues demand.

We don't expect hand-holding and mutual masturbation between the Bush Republican White House and the Democratic Congress. No-one has ever assumed the president would compromise on anything anyway. But we assumed -- perhaps wrongly -- that the Democrats would stick him. We expected a fight, and that's why we voted for Democrats a year ago yesterday. And if they should ever decide to collectively stand up and fight, we will gladly elect more of them a year from now.

Comments

[Stevelagain]

So, the vast majority of democrats do not believe that it's a good idea to try to impeach the vice president? Why? Will, obviously they blieve he did nothing for which he CAN be impeached. And they don't want to look foolish, or lose an election, trying to impeach a man on the grounds radicalized far left fantasy.

Now that's reality. You can smear those whom you do not agree with politically all you want, you can hate them all you want. But you are in America, you should not be able to criminalize them on the basis of hatred. Thank God we haven't gone that far to the left, yet.

[Maschine]

Kucinich deserves the Democratic leadership. But all you phoneys won't give it to him becasue you are all worried that he won't beat a republican McCain or Giuliani.

So far Kucinich is the ONLY democrat who has stood up to the NEOCONS, he deserves the vote, he's earned it. Will you styand for your beliefs or are you still going to try and paly the game, becasue all I read here is that democrats caved in for the sake of strategy.

Well, who has voted your conscious, name the one who best represents what you are feeling. After you do that , make sure you support him .

[kahalaman]

Bob, your blog was the best one written in months, keep it up ! One of the Reps running in our district made his biggest campaign issue the impeachment Bush. Despite his limited resume he got a respectable amount of votes but not near enough to have a chance of winning. This country has been on a downhill slide for decades. We've allowed ourselves to be manipulated by petty special interest groups for too long. Kucinich is the real deal but his non mainstrean flaws are too easily attacked by the dull witted. Edwards is our best chance at this point, though I keep writing in Gore on the Democratic polls.
I'm hoping the next generation can wake up !

[WilliePilgrim]

I just checked and Chaney is still VP...in charge of vice (and corruption), we must imagine.
He is such a ton o' lard in the category of suspision of treason that I'd think it'd be easier to go around that stinkin' pile until we take care of the more immediate needs (over-riding his ass) then come back when we have enough shovels to bury it deep beneath one of those monuments they want to put on the nuclear waste dump sites. I'll look forward to the day when we can sah "Big Dick Chaney, gone but not forgotten"...at least from downwind.

[cactusJohn]

I'm sorry I'm so late. My computer was down for a few days. This is the most suscinct, well stated piece on the Cheney / Bush-League pack of turkeys I've yet to read. Thank you so much Mr Bob Cesca. This is what I'll save for my grand-kids, and what I'll send to the Judiciary Committee, Pelosi, Hoyer, and Keith Olbermann, if he hasn't seen it. Thanks again, it's gratifying to know that as this country sinks into the trash heap of history, someone at least put it all together. Our enemies --THE DEMOCRATS.

[princessofnowt]

Can this be addressed on the CNN Las Vegas Democratic debate?

Wolf Blitzer is moderating. I don't see a place for submitting questions, but maybe if enough people email Wolf via his 'situation room' site:

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room/

Click 'contact form' lower left corner.

If they didnt exclude certain candidates from this debate, they would have been discussing this definitely.

Many Americans have not even heard that this has been brought forward. People are shocked when I mention it, most have heard nothing about this.

Will be a huge wakeup call to Americans on the whole MSM blackout concept if America hears that this has been going on with barely a mention!!!!

It should be a huge priority to people who care, now that you presumably have already called the judiciary committee and your reps, to get this on the debate!!!!!!!

[mach]

Perhaps this article should be called "THE FAILED ATTEMPT to impeach twice elected,VICE PRESIDENT Cheney.

hahaha

[boolax2]

Count me as another who believes the importance of what you have to say is sullied by the (wink, nod) homophobic rhetoric.

As a big 'mo, who happens to agree with you, I find it annoyingly puerile and unnecessarily obnoxious.

You're a wordsmith: act like one.

[CarmanK]

Hoyer is my Congressman, and at one time I was very proud of his service to the country. Since becoming Majority Whip, he has cowered to the Republicans and made fools of the MDers that supported and voted for him. At least Carding and Mikulski did not vote for Mukeasay. But Hoyer is a real disappointment. What happened to the common sense, that says if you give into a bully, he will keep beating you up. I am so tired of being beat up and apologizing to others for the Democrats behavior.

[ljlu]

Maybe I'm paranoid, but w/all of the illegal spying Bush has done, how do we know he hasn't been blackmailing House, and Senate Democrats to make them do his bidding? As crazy as it sounds, why not? Why else would Speaker of the House turn down an opportunity to make real history and show some courage by impeaching Bush/Cheney? I had suggested that we threaten to recall senators who didn't do as we asked, but everyone thinks "their" senator is great and everyones elses is in the wrong in congress. Maybe they ALL need to be recalled and maybe not one of them has ever even read the Constitution they swore to uphold? They do have the power and yet they do nothing that we ask. I just hope all of the red states are happy that they have taken down a great country by electing Bush not once but twice. God help us all.

[horhay]

Thank you Bob Cesca for this post. There has been an eery lack of interest or disregard for Kucinich's resolution to impeach Cheney by the MSM and even HuffPo. If it weren't for you and Joseph Palermo writing about it, a lot of us would never have known about it.

Thanks, also, to all the commenters and further information about doing something to empower us and make our voices be heard.

It is a little late for this impeachment, but nevertheless Cheney deserves to be impeached many times over. Res ipsa loquitur.

[ThoughtCriminal1967]

Our sitting government, in all its facets, is a public embarrassment to the American people. We have become the clown-car of international and domestic policy, with a steady stream of red-noses and big shoes pouring out of the capitol building every time a news camera turns its way. Thankfully, we're coming up on another chance to fix some of it.

The solution is a simple one. Don't vote for the incumbents and their party politics clones next year. Send a clear message to every branch of government that we are no longer going to stand for the shenanigans of the Senate, House of Mis-Repres­entatives, and President. Send them all home, and then start the indictments.

[MAGLATINA]

SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!!! WE DEMOCRATS SHOULD HANG OUR HEADS IN SHAME BECAUSE OF THE BALL-LES DEMOCRATS THAT HAVE BEEN TRAITORS TO US, THE NATION AND THE WORLD!

[Waterguy]

A stinging message for democrats. Get aggresive in fighting back or get sucked into the machine. For progressives, this must be used as our wake up call or we are destined to be herded around like cattle. Thanks to people like Cesca and Kucinich, we at least have a voice. Will this voice be resoundingly heard or will we become a cog in the machine?

[hannitizer]

Fifty years from now Americans will ask themselves how could this generation let this happen. They will be unable to understand how a tiny-minded man who is morally bankrupt and functionally inept, could be propped up by a cabal of evil men who have placed greed and power above all else. It will be incomprehensible to them that our Constitution could be shredded and our government hijacked by a lawless group of pseudo-sons of liberty, beholden only to the highest bidders.

A sad day for the entire world indeed was the day George W. Bush was installed as this soulless figurehead, festering in a world of delusional bliss. Slinging his ill-gotten power gleaned from evil enablers, and carelessly flaunting it like some schoolyard bully, he has shat upon the very essence of what remains from the past glory of our republic.

I weep for the loss we must all face. This loss of credibility and trustworthiness throughout the world is just beginning and is all but inevitable. There is only one chance for redemption; one shot to repair this horrendous damage. The world and future generations will forgive us only if we take the steps that are necessary. We as American citizens must unite with one singularly crucial purpose; the removal of Bush and Cheney from their high office. It is the only course that is acceptable.

Everyone, we must let our voices be heard, our actions be seen, and our integrity be felt. There must be those capable and loyal enough to the Constitution who are willing to exercise the intentions of the founding fathers and impeach, convict, and remove this president and his cohorts. We the people must force them. From the grave their souls demand it. And we the people must demand that our representatives live up to the honor and clarity of their predecessors and act upon their constitutional duty for the sake of the world.

We must act now or it will not be George W. Bush's legacy alone, but all of ours as well.