Impeach Cheney First

By David Swanson

We should impeach Vice President Dick Cheney first, and
President George Bush immediately thereafter. This idea
is not original with me. It’s been seen on bumper
stickers for quite some time. My attention has been
called to it by the fact that Congresswoman and
Judiciary Committee Member Maxine Waters is talking
about it. See below.

I’m persuaded of thevalue of this approach for several
reasons. Among activists who very much want
impeachment, one can hear a long list of fears and
concerns about how things might go wrong, how
impeachment could help Republicans who come around and
back it, how impeachment could take energy away from
elections, etc. But by far the most common of the
nonsensical fears one hears is this one: "Impeaching
Bush would give us Cheney, who is worse."

By proposing to impeach Cheney first, we eliminate this
fear.

I cannot conceive of a serious investigation, with
subpoena power, of either Bush or Cheney that would not
incriminate the other as well. If I’m right about this,
then the whole debate over which of these two criminals
to impeach first, in one sense, doesn’t mean much. But
for purposes of organizing activists today it means
everything. We need as many people as possible -
including those terrified by Cheney - to push for an
impeachment investigation. This campaign, and an
investigation itself, should we get one, serve
educational and political purposes. They further
discredit Bush and Cheney while helping to build an
opposition.

Our choices are not between impeachment and elections
but between both and neither. Polls suggest it will be
very difficult to win elections without demanding
impeachment.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/polling

After an investigation, we will have to fight for
impeachment, and after that for conviction and removal
from office by the Senate, and after that for criminal
indictments. While millions of Americans who favor
impeachment have announced to each other that this goal
is impossible or extremely unlikely to be achieved,
almost every single one of them has implicitly
determined that conviction in the Senate (which has
never been achieved with a president in U.S. history)
is a guaranteed lock. Thus "impeachment" is equated
with "removal from office." We should bear in mind that
Clinton was impeached but not removed from office. We
very much need to remove Bush and Cheney from office,
but it’s remarkable how quickly we jump ahead to that
stage when searching for reasons to fear and doubt
ourselves.

If we were to impeach Bush and remove him from office
and somehow not manage to do the same to Cheney, there
would be a number of advantages to this. The man who is
running much of the government backstage would be
thrust up front. His 18 percent approval rating makes
Bush’s 32 percent look stellar. A President Cheney
would be a lame duck and a walking advertisement
against the Republican party and its Democratic allies.

If, somehow, we were to remove Cheney from office and
leave Bush untouched, there would be disadvantages.
Bush would (if Congress caved in, as it almost always
does) be able to install as Vice President someone
capable of running for the top job in 2008.

Nonetheless, I am persuaded that we should go after
Cheney first. Again, he is incredibly unpopular. Very
few Republicans in Congress are going to be willing to
defend him. This will split the White House and the
Republican Party and (if this can ever be done) unite
the Democrats behind an aggressive and popular
position. This would be a step toward a strong push in
Congress for the impeachment of Bush as well. Aiming
for the low hanging fruit first is just good
organizing.

Currently 36 Congress Members (two of them just added
this week) support Congressman Conyers’ bill to create
an investigation into grounds for impeachment of Bush
(actually of any unnamed individuals in the Bush
Administration). I suspect that specifically and
exclusively targeting Cheney could add significantly to
that number right away.

While it is the duty of U.S. citizens to demand the
impeachment of criminal office holders, regardless of
any predictions of success, it makes sense to begin
from the angle most likely to succeed. More important
than which individual ends up briefly or for years
afterwards occupying the Oval Office is that he or she
be aware that we can hold them accountable, that they
be compelled to fear us, rather than we continuing to
fear them.

The situation in Congress is as follows. Congressman
John Conyers has taken the lead on the matter of
impeachment and is not at this time prepared to move
beyond his resolution for an investigation. Many other
members are not leaders and will only sign onto someone
else’s initiative. Of those who are leaders, most defer
to Conyers and are reluctant to step ahead of him, even
as their constituents demand it ever more insistently.
But introducing articles of impeachment against Cheney,
and not Bush, is something that Conyers’ office has
suggested he would not oppose.

The idea arose several weeks back when Congresswoman
Waters’ proposed it at a meeting of several Congress
Members, staff, and activists, which I attended. She
went public with the idea this past Saturday at a forum
in Sacramento held by the California Democratic Party
Progressive Caucus. Nearly 1,000 rowdy, enthusiastic
party members packed a large hall to capacity to hear
Waters and others discuss impeachment. According to Bob
Fertik, who spoke on the panel and wrote an account of
it afterwards:

"...the next question [was] why Congressional Democrats
have refused to introduce Articles of Impeachment.
Luckily Rep. Maxine Waters was on the panel, and she
described discussions we had earlier this year, which
led her to propose impeaching Cheney first. That
discussion was sidetracked when Sen. Russ Feingold
introduced his Censure Resolution, but the refusal of
most Senate Democrats to back Feingold appears to have
convinced Waters to move ahead with her idea. And of
course we will support Waters 1000% if she does."

1000 percent? Is that all? She’ll be a national hero.
No. Scratch that. She’ll be an international hero.
We’ll need to add a Maxine Waters Day to our calendars,
celebrating the day on which she placed the first stone
in the edifice of a rebuilt democracy by introducing
articles of impeachment against Richard Cheney.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/cheneyfirst