[Mb-civic] Filibuster Bush, Impeach Alito

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0115-23.htm

Published on Sunday, January 15, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
Filibuster Bush, Impeach Alito
by Paul Rogat Loeb
 
In the wake of the Alito hearings, mainline pundits are calling his 
nomination a done deal. Alito didn't spew obscenities or green bile. He 
didn't admit that he'd reverse Roe v. Wade or vow to proclaim George 
Bush Lord Emperor. Rehearsed and coached by committee member 
Lindsay Graham (and by some of the same lawyers who justified 
Bush's NSA wiretaps), he instead spoke deferentially and humbly 
about respecting legal precedent and separation of powers, while 
Republican committee members made him out to be a mix of Solomon 
and Mother Teresa. Much like Clarence Thomas during his hearings, 
Alito dodged the tough questions with evasions and platitudes, 
suffered convenient memory lapses on areas he couldn't dodge, and 
justified controversial past stands by saying he was just trying to be a 
team player. We know little more about him than before--except about 
his capacity to dissemble.

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far away, former Congresswoman Liz 
Holtzman, who sat on Nixon's impeachment committee, just wrote that 
Bush's defiance of the law through illegal wiretapping, lying about the 
reasons for going to war, and condoning of violation of US law about 
detainee abuse constitute grounds for impeachment. Holtzman said 
impeachment should never be undertaken lightly. She found "voting for 
[Nixon's] impeachment to be one of the most sobering and unpleasant 
tasks I ever had to undertake." But she said it was necessary in 
Nixon's case, and merited in Bush's as well. A Zogby poll taken last 
November, just before the wiretap scandal broke, found that 53 
percent of those questioned favored impeachment of President Bush if 
he lied about the war in Iraq.

If there's a chance to stop Alito, much less reclaim our democracy, we 
need to bring these realities together. The filibuster just might be the 
vehicle to do that, as Senators could spell out the links between link 
runaway executive power and a nominee who has consistently ruled 
and spoken in favor of the unaccountable expansion of that power. 
Suppose the Democratic Senators actually used a filibuster to talk 
about the Alito nomination in its broadest context. They wouldn't read 
the phone book. They wouldn't get lost in an endless maze of legal 
rhetoric about stare decisis. They could talk about how they'd have 
readily accepted a more moderate nominee, much as Clinton 
nominated Steven Breyer and Ruth Ginzberg in part because Orrin 
Hatch said he'd accept them as preferable to other proposed justices. 
They'd use the filibuster to educate as well as impede.

However they label their actions, suppose the Democrats started 
debating the nomination, and didn't stop, in the process addressing the 
real roots of why Alito would be so destructive. They could read from 
articles and books about this administration's abuse of presidential 
power. They could talk about whether we really want government 
officials to be able to strip us of our rights at will, listen in on our phone 
and email conversations without a court order, and infiltrate the citizen 
groups through which we gather peacefully to express our beliefs. 
They could talk about the choices women were forced to make when 
abortion was illegal, what it's like to be discriminated against, then told 
you don't meet an impossible burden of proof, and whether police 
should be able to shoot unarmed 15-year-olds who flee after stealing 
$10. They could talk about the Sago mine disaster, and the fruits of a 
politics where unions are busted and regulations gutted at every turn. 
They could tell the stories that bring seemingly abstract issues of 
jurisdiction and constitutional interpretation to life, and make clear their 
real-world consequences.

In the process they could remind America that this president, with this 
track record of lies, deceptions, and favors for the most destructive 
private interests, deserves no presumption of deference. And that 
when he nominates someone, like Alito, who will only further his 
abuses of power, Senators have a moral responsibility to oppose him 
however they can. The wink-and-nod games of the hearings were 
designed to obscure Alito's record and frame him as genial and 
reasonable. If the Democrats accept this, or even quietly vote against 
him without further protest, they further the lie that this is an ordinary 
nomination in an ordinary time. If they filibuster and stand firm, there's 
a chance that the now politically weakened Republicans will back down 
and not risk putting themselves on the line for destroying nearly 200 
years of Senate tradition for the naked goal of increasing their power. 
But Democrats have to take the risk of standing strong, and we as 
ordinary citizens have to do all we can to convince them to do so.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little 
While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 
political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book 
Association, and winner of the Nautilus Award for best social change 
book of the year. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living 
With Conviction in a Cynical Time.

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