Last summer, a USA Today-Gallup poll found 36% of Americans thought Congress should impeach George W. Bush.
Even more wanted Dick Cheney's head.
Despite fluctuating numbers for several years, no serious movement to forcibly remove them from office ever caught fire. The simple fact is that this administration effectively ran out the clock on impeachment at least a year ago. That option is long gone.
Yet the shoes just keep on dropping.
Ron Suskind's new book The Way Of The World shows conclusively that the White House ordered a fake, backdated letter to "prove" that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was connected to al Qaeda. First we're lied into war, then false evidence is contrived to fool us, and Suskind's proof comes from no less than former high-ranking CIA officials who are named and on tape.
This latest news is simultaneously beyond the pale and not shocking at all, which is the odd place we find ourselves after seven and a half years.
Richard Nixon's paranoia led him to spy on his enemies and he ultimately resigned, the only president in history to do so. Only an immediate pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford, averted criminal indictment. The Bush/Cheney duo, however, is a completely different animal, making "Tricky Dick" come off as a mere piker.
Therefore, something must be done, but what? Filing charges after Bush leaves office is possible but problematic because the Constitution lacks any real guidance on this question. The Supreme Court, which forced W on us in the first place in 2000, ruled in 1982 that ex-presidents do have "damages immunity" for official, on-the-job acts. As for lying, Bush never testified under oath about anything, not even when he was interviewed by federal prosecutors investigating the illegal leak of a covert CIA officer's name.
More importantly, mounting a criminal case could take years. It would freeze the country in the partisanship of the past when an Obama administration should move briskly into the future. Perhaps we're better off with Crawford, Texas in our rear-view mirror.
Still, there's a hell of a mess left behind, so here's a quick, easy, permanent rebuke: no swag bag on their way out the door.
No post-presidential emolument of any kind. No lifetime salary (currently near $200K annually), no multi-million dollar office budget that citizens now ante up every year, no matching millions to help run the Bush presidential library. Not a dime of taxpayer money other than the necessary Secret Service detail (it only lasts 10 years, anyway).
This crowd is super wealthy; they won't end up on desolation row. But such a response will shout for the record -- officially and forever -- that in this country you can't waltz away unscathed after such high office malfeasance.
After all, Bill Clinton endured impeachment over a non-criminal dalliance with an intern. Are Bush and Cheney destined to suffer zero indignity? Whistling arm-in-arm into the night as the camera fades, like the final airport scene from Casablanca? It sure seems that way, unless we at least insist on some sort of justice.
Congress sets salaries and retirement benefits. There were no presidential pensions until 1958, so they're hardly sacred, and nothing precludes withholding them as punishment. It's never been done, but has been openly considered twice: by Democrats when Nixon left office in shame, and by Republicans in the late 90's as a cudgel against Clinton.
It's finally time. Stripping Bush -- Cheney, too -- of our hard-earned tax dollars for the rest of their lives, without gloat or bloodlust, is the least we can do.
They've more than earned it.