MB Civic

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/10/1426234

This I never knew…

AMY GOODMAN: What’s your response to the Speaker in waiting, Nancy Pelosi, saying [impeachment is] off the table?

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: Well, it’s very understandable. It was off the table to the Democrats in 1973, when the Democrats controlled the House and the Senate, and you had Richard Nixon as president.

AMY GOODMAN: He had won by a landslide victory in 1972.

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: Correct. He had won by a landslide, and impeachment was off the table then. Nobody — no Democrat was pushing for it. And, in fact, as the revelations came out, it still wasn’t on the table. It took the American people, after the Saturday Night Massacre, sending a clear message to the Congress

And here’s the dilemma:

AMY GOODMAN: — Nancy Pelosi would be president…if President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were impeached. But what are you talking about when it comes to Vice President Dick Cheney?

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN: Well, my view right now is that I’m not sure we have the overwhelming evidence. That’s not to say he hasn’t committed impeachable offenses, just that we don’t have the same level of evidence that we have with respect to President Bush. On the illegal wiretaps, for example, it’s President Bush who repeatedly and admittedly signed these orders directing wiretaps in violation of the explicit language of the statute. We don’t have Dick Cheney signing that. I mean, that’s a very good example of how we have President Bush, but we don’t see Vice President Cheney’s fingerprints. That’s not to say he wasn’t part and parcel to this, but we don’t see that,

And Ellsberg says…

And now, an unauthorized disclosure, a leak, has a chance of being acted on by Congress, which in the last several years, people have gotten discouraged. They’ve put out the truth to Sy Hersh and to others, and we can all see, not much happens. Congress, the Republican committees are not interested in hearing that. They don’t want to act on it. Now, it’s a challenge. If somebody inside the government gives information either on criminal wrongdoing by their bosses, which bears directly, or, you know, terrible high crimes and misdemeanors, which bears directly on impeachment, if they give that to Congress and the press, Congress can’t — Congress now led by the Democrats cannot just ignore it, at least not if we let them.

The case for impeachment is obviously there, it’s a just a question of forces aligning .. and whether we want the consequences (President Cheney? .. don’t think so .. I could settle for President McCain or President Rice).
-MAB

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