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

[coachwrite]

Why stop at Cheney?
The buck stops at the big desk in the Oval Office---
Impeachment is too good for the axis of evil (Bush-Cheney-Rove) who's defecated all over our Consititution, Bill of Rights, honor and economy---shame, shame on them. One can only wonder how they manage to look in the mirror and shave in the morning....oh, that's right. They're Republicans, their "people" probably do that for them so they don't have to look in the mirror...

[racetoinfinity]

I've been linking to this site for six months or more to vote in an "Impeach Cheney" poll (one of two I believe that each have about 120,000 signatories now) -

http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php
--------

Uh, Bob: I whole-heartedly agree with the CONTENT of everything you said in your post, but....

the macho obsession with balls (very blatant in your relentless metaphors of the Dems as balless: "might reunite them with their balls" - "won't make the president go all limp", "the 'faggy' left wing", "hand holding and mutual masturbation", "pathetic ass-up submissive posture", "we assumed the Dems would STICK him", etc., etc.) is a bit repellent imo. There are other metaphors to talk about guts and strength. That imo plays into the Ann Coulters of the world homophobia. Ironic that peacenik Kucinich (who sees peace as strength, not war) introduced this bill to impeach, against the macho stereotype you hammer the Dems with here. It's really more a a matter of the dems standing up to their corporate masters than owning their balls, IMO.

Ironic, too, that today, the House passed the first anti-discrimination-in-the workplace against gays and lesbians bill.

[newsweek1945]

The poor Democrats are afraid of being seen as anti-(new) American, i.e., don't question or oppose or you will be aiding the terrorists. They are ethically and intellectually immobile. They are waiting for the people to truly wake, shred the shroud placed over their minds, and act! But they (the people) too are immobilized by hype, spin, and rhetoric, an intellectual sarcosis, if you will, and can't see through the fog. They are easily fooled, not knowing that they have the power; all they need is the will!!
God help America!!!!

[dawlishgal]

"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."

THANKS! This is EXACTLY why the "centrists" like HC are such fools. There is NO middle ground between sliming children and not sliming them, between slandering combat vets and not doing it, and between lying about reasons to invade a country that did nothing to us and telling the truth...I could go on and on.

To achieve a middle-ground, BOTH sides have to be willing to compromise. A few Republicans (Specter and Warner for two) talk a good game, but when the vote rolls around, they vote lock- step with the others. THAT is why it is so depressing to see the newly elected senators voting with the Republicans. Are they deciding on their own to betray the voters, or is somebody telling them that they have to?

[siri2k]

I have loved each and every thing I have EVER read by Bob Cesca. THIS ONE, HOWEVER, has GOT to be his best, most powerful article yet.

This is completely right on target and needs to be on the front page of the NYT.

Keep it up Bob! America needs more like this!

legitgov.orgv.org
www.legitgov.org

[Truetuft]

OK, Everyone. I've e-mailed both of my representatives in congress to persure H Res 333. It's been fun reading your posts but if you want to make your voice heard then you'd better send a note to your representative. Right now.

[der Alte]

excellent post. couldn't agree more.

if these dems in Congress don't awaken pretty soon, it will be nov. 2008.

[mythster]

Women in government?
Clinton, Pelosi, Fienstein, Boxer etc.
It's their natural affiliative nature that makes them incapable of taking a real stand on anything. One little shadow of opposition and they run for the hill (or is it from the Hill?)
"C'mon boys, just be nice" Just ain't going to cut it.
Bob made me do it

[unreconstructedrebel]

I'm sure that the fact that Senator Feinstein's husband had hundreds of millions of dollars riding on a pending DOD contract had nothing to do with her vote. Yeah. Sure.

Don't know the specifics of why the rest of my party so consistently wimps out with the exception of that well known and justifiably respected minority...but you can bet there are specifics there too. As Marvin Gaye once so profoundly asked, "What's goin' on?" Deep down we all know--- it's not about conscience.

Thanks Bob Cesca for the great blog. It helped drag me back out of the pits of gloom. Always nice to know there are powerful people with such awareness not among the Missing In Action.

Time to take some names and kick some ass...

[smanche243]

Bob - great post - very well written!

I have become very skeptical about our Democratic representatives. Many of them are saying the things we want to hear, but conveniently for the thugs in power, there are always enough Democrats voting with the Republicans to maintain the status quo.

Perhaps we are all being duped. When all is said and done the Republicans and Democrats serve at the will of the ruling cla$$!

[JumpyPants]

BRAVO, BOB!

Once again, you have one of the hottest posts on the site because you are telling THE BIG FAT TRUTH.

[delicado]

Great piece of journalism. This is no longer a two-party system, that allows other small parties to be on the ballot, if they can fulfill the requirements, this is a two party system, that both have candidates, with a few exceptions, with the same goals, war and money. They keep forgetting, we elected them, we are their employers, but it seems even the voters want to hold their noses IF they decide to vote. If John Conyers cannot see fit to bring this impeachment of Cheney to fruition, maybe he should be "impeached" or NOT re-elected. He went by Pelosi's mandate, "Impeachment is off the table" in direct defiance of the voters wanting this war stopped, but she shows no sign of stopping the flow of war funding money by closing the purse strings. The other way is to bring down the war machine by impeachment. Instead she and Obey are making a war-funding bridge for the Iraq war, separate from the Defense Funding bill that includes emergency war funding and funding for the B-52 bunker bombers so we can bomb Iran (Iraq and Afghanistan have different terrain). Will it do any good, with Mukasey as Attorney General with our two Dems turncoating to allow him to be appointed. How could they, when Mukasey said he believed Bush to be above the law and didn't know if waterboarding was torture. Well, Monday, the Acting Attorney General,Daniel Levin, pre-Gonzales, revealed that he had waterboarding done to him at an army base, so he could write an opinion. He allowed the torture,he wrote the opinion that it was torture, and waterboarding was thereby illegal. He sent the decision on to Bush who promptly fired him, hid the decision and appointed Gonzales. That decision would make the Bush-Cheney regime criminals, as they then kept right on with waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Gahrib. Now that the decision is out in the open, will Congress agree that it is legal? Will they do anything about it besides posturing?

[AMGolan]

What's going to happen, as a result of these ball-less Democrats, is that their base is going to abandon them & our next Democratic President, will have to deal with a Republican Congress. They don't think that will happen? Guess what? I think voting for any of them, is like voting for a Republican...what's the difference, we still get a Republican result.

[mizpurple]

Amen! And thank you. I hope I'm not the only one who is sending this to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Are there no MEN in our party? It's not a gender question.

[fedup07]

Bob Cesca -I think that is your best post yet!! Thank you for having the balls to speak the truth!!

It's unfortunate but I think we have a ONE PARTY system, not two. I think the Dems are Repukes in Dem clothing and vice verse. The only ones who 'stand out' are Kucinich and Feingold and Waxman...we have a few more that scream the truth and are disgusted with their own party...but the rest appear to be in it for the money...and with this CRIMINAL Bush administration they are ALL rolling in the dough!!