The other day my friend Thomas (aka The Newsrack Blogger) got into a fistfight at a local bookstore over the question of impeachment.
Okay, it wasn’t a fistfight—he had shouting match with Eric Alterman, author of Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America, during the Q&A at a book signing.
Okay, okay, the exchange wasn’t heated (as far as I know—I wasn’t there). Thomas merely asked Alterman a tough follow-up question. And Alterman continued to dismiss the impeachment of Bush and Cheney as not only politically stupid but a kind of “moral vanity.”
Alterman is wrong, of course, and Thomas is absolutely right. Bush and Cheney deserve to be impeached. Not only have they repeatedly broken the law, they have easily satisfied the lower standards that make offenses impeachable (i.e., significant and harmful political “misdemeanors”). But I think Thomas is wrong to frame it in the context of “liberalism”—viz., that Alterman as a putative “liberal” should, ipso facto, support impeachment. In fact, it is perhaps the highest form of conservatism to insist that the president of the United States is not above the law, and to seek removal when the laws, and the lawful prerogatives of Congress, are flouted by the executive branch. In this regard, I am conservative, despite my radicalism on other issues.
How diseased is modern American conservatism? One need look no further than its acceptance of a president who has arrogated kingly authority over the legislature, private enterprise,* and the public. Not long ago this same segment of the American polity sullied the Constitution with the tawdry, basely motivated and totally unjustified impeachment of Bill Clinton. These “conservatives” have poisoned political life in this country to the extent that a population that actually wants impeachment hearings calmly accepts inaction from their elected representatives. Yes, the majority wants impeachment, but not enough to insist on it. Is this because of sour memories of the nineties? Is it because they know the Democrats aren’t powerful enough to pull it off on their own? Maybe it’s because they watch TV. And read Eric Alterman. (Whose work I generally admire, by the way.)
The impeachment drive against Richard Nixon owed its success to the fact that many members of his own party were disgusted by his criminal behavior and put the political health of the republic above their narrow personal loyalties. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was almost risibly partisan, as well it should have been—it was garbage from the outset and should have gone nowhere. The fact that it almost succeeded says something about not only the debased state of American politics but also the concentrated power of the increasingly univocal, commercially prostituted mainstream media.
Again, the impeachment of Bush and Cheney goes nowhere because politics in this country is currently too sick to manage it. The Democrats are apparently convinced they will soon deal a death blow to the stumbling, stammering, bleeding creature that is Goldwater–Reagan–Gingrich–DeLay–Bush/Cheney “conservatism.” That is apparently one reason they choose not to do the constitutionally proper thing and impeach the president and vice president. They are also mindful of the fact that, although they constitute a majority in both chambers of Congress, they are not a “supermajority,” which makes them susceptible to an unprecedented level of obstruction by the dead-enders in the Republican minority. And although they would be fully justified in beginning impeachment hearings, they would be attacked relentlessly by the news corporations that continue to lick the feet of the Bush/Cheney cabal. (Not that the press should turn around and lick the Democrats’ feet. It would be sufficient if the “news” would simply convey factual, uninflected coverage of the issues that really matter to its consumers, not oligarchic and plutocratic spin.) And so the Democrats wait.
A Democratic president and a stronger Democratic majority in Congress could, if it mustered the will, find many ways to redress the imbalance that has developed between the executive and legislative branches, to identify and root out odious practices in federal agencies, and even to punish some wrongdoers. Will they? Much will depend on the conservatism that emerges from the decayed corpse of its current avatar—a Frankenstein monster of money, know-nothingism, and self-righteousness.
The truly shocking thing about the lawlessness we are living through is how few self-described conservatives have spoken out in favor of the proper constitutional corrective of impeachment. Bruce Fein has been one. Mickey Edwards has been another. This country needs a lot more than that. And until a truly conservative conservatism is reborn in this country, and the radical elevation of untrammeled, secretive, fear-mongering executive authority is universally rejected, Thomas and the rest of us are going to be very frustrated indeed. Impeachment is not a liberal thing. It needs conservatives to work.
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*E.g., illegally pressuring telecoms to hand over phone records. Of course, there’s a quid for every quo: on balance, Bush/Cheney has been very good for corporate America—and anyone, for that matter, who already has it made. [back]
No, the exchange wasn’t heated, though I was a little nervous and sounded that way.
You’re right that impeachment shouldn’t be a liberal thing; avoiding it shouldn’t be held up as the height of liberal wisdom either. (Not saying that’s your claim).
As Alterman seems to understand it, liberalism is more of a shopping or to-do list than a hierarchy of political goals and (Allah forbid) principles. As you describe it, conservatism should be about upholding our civic understanding of the country.
I’ll quibble with one thing you said: “The impeachment drive against Richard Nixon owed its success to the fact that many members of his own party were disgusted by his criminal behavior and put the political health of the republic above their narrow personal loyalties.”
Insert an “also” right after Nixon, and I’m with you. That is, those members didn’t initiate anything — they had to have their noses rubbed in Nixon’s crimes for weeks before a few of them saw them for what they were. The decision by some few GOP members to do the right thing came only after a lot of other dominoes had fallen — principally that House Dem leadership finally decided to go forward with the process.
To re-engage Alterman (or Pelosi, or Van Hollen, or Conyers): would the impeachment have been “wrong” or a waste of time had the Judiciary Committee failed to gain GOP votes, or pass the articles at all? I don’t think so — the hearings were forever there for all to review, and the failure to pass the articles would have been understood as a partisan failure of the GOP, not of the Dems. (In my opinion.)
Meant to say above that between Alterman’s liberalism and your conservatism, I’d choose your outlook. Also, thanks again for writing this.
Responding to your first comment (the second—thank you kindly—arrived as I was composing this): I agree, even with your quibble, although I would put the “also” between “party” and “were.” 😉 Like you, I don’t think it would have been a waste of time to hold the hearings in 2006 or 2007 or even now. But I would refer back to my point about how the idea of impeachment has been besmirched, and that the idea needs to be rehabilitated. Holding hearings on the impeachment of Bush and Cheney might have gone some distance in doing so; then again, it may be too soon for another impeachment, and in that regard Pelosi et al. just may be right (gasp!). The public may be for impeachment hearings (barely) at the outset, but where would they be after a few weeks or months of them? And you can say, “It doesn’t matter if they succeed,” but for Pelosi et al., unfortunately, it probably does.
Again, the larger point is that conservatism (true conservatism) needs to rehabilitate itself to the extent that a handful of conservatives could do now what the corresponding handful did in 1974. As usual, I don’t offer a prescription for what to do. I’m just saying. Modern-day Republicans should be ashamed of themselves, and I’m just trying to do my part to shame them.
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