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The case for impeachment (even now)
Bush: The final days
Robert Zaller
As Election Day approached, the journalistic cottage industry that has flourished on the presidency of George W. Bush shut down to retool for his successor, leaving the historians to take over. Journalism isn’t history, even when it covers the same terrain; its protocols are different, and so is its perspective. Historians will nonetheless rely on the dedicated work of journalists in trying to pry open this most secretive (and malignant) administration in American history.
The grand panjandrum of American journalists is Bob Woodward, whose tetralogy on the Bush years— Bush at War, Plan of Attack, State of Denial and The War Within— has concentrated on what most observers agree will be their defining events: the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Woodward enjoys the knack of access. Despite his role in bringing down the Nixon administration, over the years he has made himself not only into the consummate Washington insider, but a man of such power that presidents and their ministers dare not refuse him their confidence.
Woodward has played an indispensable role in getting vital information to the public; it is to him, for example, that we owe the knowledge that Bush regarded the intelligence information on which America went to war in Iraq as unacceptably thin, and in effect suborned his CIA director, George Tenet, to pad it out. In a less Orwellian world than the one we now live in, that might have been grounds for impeachment, just as the Watergate revelations were for Nixon. But the price of such disclosures is an often- paralyzing discretion. Woodward no longer goes for the “story,” as he and Carl Bernstein did in their Watergate days; rather, he is the placid court chronicler, whose implicit judgments must be read between the lines.
Woodward, too, faces history’s judgment
In playing this role, Woodward knows, he risks being taken for a courtier himself, not to say actually becoming one. He worries particularly that Bush at War, the first book of the tetralogy, may have left an overly sanguine impression of Bush as “a strong, inspirational leader,” and thus (although he doesn’t say this) may have contributed to the President’s own self-assurance in invading Iraq, and the public’s willingness to accept the war. At the end of the last volume, facing the judgment of history no less than his subject— and no longer needing the good will of the President or his minions— Woodward finally permits himself a corrective:
"For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. Too often the result has been impulsiveness and carelessness and— perhaps most troubling— a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut [instinct]." (See The War Within, p. 433.)
This is the wisdom to which hundreds of hours of interviews and thousands of hours of writing and reflection have brought Woodward— in public, anyway. Quelle surprise! But, after all, there’ll soon be another administration to get the scoop on. Can’t cash in all one’s chips.
‘He’d still be a free man’
I read The War Within in tandem with Vincent Bugliosi’s best-selling but virtually unreviewed book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Bugliosi, a retired prosecutor best known as the lead state attorney in the Charles Manson trial, characterizes Bush as a “human monster” (p. 82) whose “monumentally criminal and deadly” conduct (130) cannot be slaked by the ordinary constitutional process of removal from office, but cries out for blood vengeance:
“If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he’d still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and live a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths [in Iraq]” (p. 82).
Instead, because Bush’s crime “is so prodigious and has been on such a grand scale . . . it would greatly dishonor those in their graves who paid the ultimate price because of it if he were not to pay the ultimate penalty” through being prosecuted “for first degree murder” (99).
It’s not hard to figure why Bugliosi’s book has received few mainstream reviews, although he has been one of the most popular nonfiction authors in the country for decades.
The assault on the Constitution continues
Now, I am personally very sympathetic to Bugliosi’s project, although as a non-lawyer I cannot judge the technical arguments he makes for the criminal prosecution of Bush under American codes of justice; and as an opponent of capital punishment I would settle for a sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor. But I think Bugliosi errs in setting impeachment aside.
Although Bush’s crime in lying the country into war in Iraq is indeed monumental, his other crimes against due process, statute law, and his oath to preserve, protect and defend the common welfare are both egregious, and (like the war in Iraq) continuing. Moreover, while casualties in Iraq have abated, Bush’s grand assault on the Constitution, the environment and the public health and safety is being pushed with undiminished vigor and zeal in his waning days in office. Consider the following:
The list goes on and on, but I trust you get the point. In Bush’s final days, the tempo of destruction grows ever faster, the wreckage to be left behind ever greater. Between now and January 20th, how can Americans protect themselves? The Constitution offers no remedy short of impeachment.
To read responses to this article, click here.
The grand panjandrum of American journalists is Bob Woodward, whose tetralogy on the Bush years— Bush at War, Plan of Attack, State of Denial and The War Within— has concentrated on what most observers agree will be their defining events: the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Woodward enjoys the knack of access. Despite his role in bringing down the Nixon administration, over the years he has made himself not only into the consummate Washington insider, but a man of such power that presidents and their ministers dare not refuse him their confidence.
Woodward has played an indispensable role in getting vital information to the public; it is to him, for example, that we owe the knowledge that Bush regarded the intelligence information on which America went to war in Iraq as unacceptably thin, and in effect suborned his CIA director, George Tenet, to pad it out. In a less Orwellian world than the one we now live in, that might have been grounds for impeachment, just as the Watergate revelations were for Nixon. But the price of such disclosures is an often- paralyzing discretion. Woodward no longer goes for the “story,” as he and Carl Bernstein did in their Watergate days; rather, he is the placid court chronicler, whose implicit judgments must be read between the lines.
Woodward, too, faces history’s judgment
In playing this role, Woodward knows, he risks being taken for a courtier himself, not to say actually becoming one. He worries particularly that Bush at War, the first book of the tetralogy, may have left an overly sanguine impression of Bush as “a strong, inspirational leader,” and thus (although he doesn’t say this) may have contributed to the President’s own self-assurance in invading Iraq, and the public’s willingness to accept the war. At the end of the last volume, facing the judgment of history no less than his subject— and no longer needing the good will of the President or his minions— Woodward finally permits himself a corrective:
"For years, time and again, President Bush has displayed impatience, bravado and unsettling personal certainty about his decisions. Too often the result has been impulsiveness and carelessness and— perhaps most troubling— a delayed reaction to realities and advice that run counter to his gut [instinct]." (See The War Within, p. 433.)
This is the wisdom to which hundreds of hours of interviews and thousands of hours of writing and reflection have brought Woodward— in public, anyway. Quelle surprise! But, after all, there’ll soon be another administration to get the scoop on. Can’t cash in all one’s chips.
‘He’d still be a free man’
I read The War Within in tandem with Vincent Bugliosi’s best-selling but virtually unreviewed book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Bugliosi, a retired prosecutor best known as the lead state attorney in the Charles Manson trial, characterizes Bush as a “human monster” (p. 82) whose “monumentally criminal and deadly” conduct (130) cannot be slaked by the ordinary constitutional process of removal from office, but cries out for blood vengeance:
“If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he’d still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and live a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths [in Iraq]” (p. 82).
Instead, because Bush’s crime “is so prodigious and has been on such a grand scale . . . it would greatly dishonor those in their graves who paid the ultimate price because of it if he were not to pay the ultimate penalty” through being prosecuted “for first degree murder” (99).
It’s not hard to figure why Bugliosi’s book has received few mainstream reviews, although he has been one of the most popular nonfiction authors in the country for decades.
The assault on the Constitution continues
Now, I am personally very sympathetic to Bugliosi’s project, although as a non-lawyer I cannot judge the technical arguments he makes for the criminal prosecution of Bush under American codes of justice; and as an opponent of capital punishment I would settle for a sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor. But I think Bugliosi errs in setting impeachment aside.
Although Bush’s crime in lying the country into war in Iraq is indeed monumental, his other crimes against due process, statute law, and his oath to preserve, protect and defend the common welfare are both egregious, and (like the war in Iraq) continuing. Moreover, while casualties in Iraq have abated, Bush’s grand assault on the Constitution, the environment and the public health and safety is being pushed with undiminished vigor and zeal in his waning days in office. Consider the following:
- The Guantanamo Bay prison remains open in defiance of international law and various interventions by the federal courts— including the Supreme Court— to get due process for the souls still immured and tortured there. So do an undisclosed number of black sites operated by the CIA or on its behalf around the world.
- Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to give Congress documents pertaining to the Justice Department’s legal advice on detention and interrogation of detainees. Meanwhile, Mukasey has elected not to file any charges concerning the politically motivated firings of nine U. S. attorneys. Bush’s former counsel, Harriet Miers, and his current chief of staff, Josh Bolten, have been held in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer subpoenas on this subject.
- President Bush remains in defiance of the revised Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires court approval for electronic eavesdropping. Among those being illegally tapped are American soldiers in Iraq telephoning home (see The New York Times, Oct. 16).
- Bush continues to void or defy statutes he has signed into law, thus making a mockery of the legislative process.
- The Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (so-called) are rushing to weaken as many regulations protecting the health and safety of Americans as possible before January 20; the former is now poised to issue a rule making it easier for mountaintop mining companies to dump waste near rivers and streams (Los Angeles Times, Oct. 31), and to open 11 million acres of land federal land in Utah to oil and gas drilling and off-road vehicles in what The New York Times describes as a site of “priceless cultural artifacts and some of the most breathtaking open spaces in America.”
- The Department of Agriculture has just killed a successful 17-year Philadelphia schools breakfast and lunch program that other cities have been eager to adopt.
The list goes on and on, but I trust you get the point. In Bush’s final days, the tempo of destruction grows ever faster, the wreckage to be left behind ever greater. Between now and January 20th, how can Americans protect themselves? The Constitution offers no remedy short of impeachment.
To read responses to this article, click here.
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