In the August 11, 2008 edition of Time magazine, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes the following ridiculous assertion (p. 6): “You can’t talk about impeachment unless you have the facts, and you can’t have the facts unless you have cooperation from the Administration.” There is ample reason to charge the president and vice president (not to mention key members of the Bush cabinet) with high crimes, some of them war crimes. If they are guilty, it would be extremely stupid to expect them to cooperate by providing evidence of their wrongdoing.
Perhaps Speaker Pelosi meant to say that Congress doesn’t have any power of its own to compel discovery of the facts; that it must depend on the Justice Department, which is run by the criminals it is pursuing. If true, then she is guilty of not striving to fix such a serious flaw in the Constitution. If false (which I believe is the case), she is guilty of inexcusable ignorance of her power and should be removed.
In the article, Ms. Pelosi goes on to say that “the Republicans would like nothing better than for us to focus on impeachment and take our eye off the ball of a progressive economic agenda.” Congressional Republicans, many of whom may have enabled the allegedly criminal behavior of the administration, have actively blocked the progressive agenda along with the president. By suggesting that the few bills that have passed are worth letting criminals go free is to imply that the speaker is effectively giving in to blackmail, and not getting a very good deal in the bargain.
1 comment:
When I said "blackmail" I actually meant "bribery"; but if the speaker has already received favors (in the form of legislative support) for not pursuing impeachment, then to hide her guilt she could now be giving in to blackmail.
Post a Comment