Op-Ed

It was a chilling moment on a split-screen of history. While the Senate debated the Iraq war on the night of July 17, a long-dead senator again renounced a chronic lie about congressional options and presidential power.

     The Senate was in the final hours of another failure to impede the momentum of war. As the New York Times was to report, President Bush “essentially won the added time he said he needed to demonstrate that his troop buildup was succeeding.”

     Meanwhile, inside a movie theater on the opposite coast, the thunderous voice of Senator Wayne Morse spoke to 140 people at an event organized by the activist group Sacramento for Democracy. The extraordinary senator was speaking in May 1964 -- and in July 2007.

     A typical dash of media conventional wisdom had set him off. The moderator of the CBS program “Face the Nation,” journalist Peter Lisagor, told the guest: “Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy.”

Of all the things out there to be afraid of, why have we wasted so much ink and airtime on the vaguely troubled churnings of Michael Chertoff’s gut? And why, for that matter, do the media, dutifully following the lead of the Bush administration, show such ongoing reverence for al-Qaida’s alleged capacity to bring us to our knees and wreck our way of life?

But the $64,000 question amid all the frantic noise (adjusted for inflation, it may be the $2 trillion question) is: Why is our waiting time at the airport punctuated at regular intervals by utterly meaningless reminders over the PA system that the nation is at threat level orange?

I have my theories. It may well be true that air travel security — unlike airplane maintenance (let us pray) — is a profession with no deeper roots in rationality than any other type of fortune telling, but the widespread collusion of otherwise sensible people in the dissemination of vague “warnings” that do not translate into any obvious modification of behavior point to another explanation.

My country ’tis of thee . . .

The bulk of John Edwards' wealth is invested in, his recent income derives from, and his biggest contributors are employed by Fortress Investment Group.  Fortress, which paid Edwards almost half a million dollars to advise them, deals in hedge funds and private equity.  Its private equity holdings have not been reported on.  (Where is journalism when there's no sex involved?)  Its hedge funds invest in, among other things, publicly traded companies.  Those are reported to the SEC, most recently on May 15th in this filing: http://tinyurl.com/ytzlba

Bush has photos of Pelosi doing… WHAT?

Here's the situation Nancy Pelosi finds herself in.  A full 54% of Americans and 76% of Democrats want Dick Cheney impeached.  Cheney's 13% favorability makes him the least popular president or vice president ever.  The Washington Post reports that Republicans are turning against Cheney.  By failing to act, the Democratic Congress has made itself less popular than Bush.  Were the Congress to impeach Cheney and the Senate to acquit him, the Democrats would win a significant majority in the Senate because the public would toss some Republicans who voted for Cheney out on their asses.  So, the Democrats would not just do the right thing for the future of our nation but achieve electoral victories by moving on impeachment, whether they manage to succeed with it or not.  There's no known downside to trying.

Even as we throw a wall of barbed wire and tin across our southern border, we’re allowing the only national wall that actually serves a legitimate purpose to fall into serious disrepair, with signs of active government collusion in its collapse.

The wall, of course, is the one that separates church and state — and establishes what may be, arguably, the single most important agreement we have as a nation and free society: the agreement that secularity is sacred.

This agreement has to be more than a genteel abstraction if it’s going to survive Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department and the Evangelical takeover of the Air Force Academy and the simmering witches’ brew of money and Old Testament intolerance that is George Bush’s political base. For that reason, gloves off, my friends — about faith, values, spirituality and even that loaded term, God.

The impeachment movement is gaining traction, and now - over the next two weeks - is the time to push it all the way to success.  Over the weekend, supporters of impeachment made "Impeach Cheney" the number 1 video on Youtube.  On Friday, for the first time, a polling company asked Americans if they want Cheney impeached. A majority of 54% said Yes, and the poll was reported in the media. Congressman John Conyers even cited it on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.

On July 4, the day of throwing off King Georges, an Impeach Bush and Cheney petition passed 100,000 signatures! So now we're raising the bar to 1 million: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/petition  Also on July 4, Los Angeles opened an Impeachment Center, and on July 5 Philadelphia held an impeachment forum (here's the video).

On the 5th Anniversary of the Downing Street Meeting and the same day as a Dem Prez candidates debate in the evening on CNN, Youtube, and Google, July 23, 2007, Cindy Sheehan plans to lead a delegation to Congressman John Conyers' office in DC to demand impeachment. We will be willing to risk arrest. Let's bring a crowd!

This is part of a march that Cindy and others are making from Texas to New York. The march may make stops at the district offices of other House Judiciary Committee Members, such as Rick Boucher, Mel Watt, and Bobby Scott.

You can organize a meeting, protest, honk-a-thon, or sit-in at your Congress Member's office. One way to get organized is with this system. You can find events and create them here. And you can meet people in Facebook.

We need a nonviolent revolution to compel our Congress Members to revive our Constitution. Sitting in their offices and reading the Constitution out loud, if enough of us do it, may save our democracy.

Many of America’s most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than four years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins.

The media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate) has performed a public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The organization’s activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR’s extensive research to assemble a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq invasion.

One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from ace New York Times reporter -- and chronic Pentagon promoter -- Michael Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders’ bombing of Iraqi TV.

George Mason (1725-1792), the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention in favor of providing the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by pointing out that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the U.S. Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

The official list of cosponsors of H Res 333 to impeach Dick Cheney cannot be updated until July 10 when Congress gets back to Washington.  But Congress Members can contact Dennis Kucinich's office in the meantime and sign on.  And citizens can encourage them to do so.  In fact, this is the week in which you should visit your Congress Member's district office and demand that he or she sign onto Kucinich's articles of impeachment or introduce their own.  And they should not just sign on, but make a public statement in support.  Here's everything you need to know: http://impeachcheney.org

The official count of cosponsors, including Kucinich, is at 10.  But Rep. Jim McDermott spoke on the floor of the House last week and committed to signing on.  That makes 11.  Congressmen Bob Filner and Jim Moran now also say that they are signing on.  That's 13.  And Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. has spoken out in support of impeachment.  He is clearly either signing on or introducing his own articles of impeachment or both.  That makes probably 14.