Why We MUST Impeach (Mary Lyon)

  Mary Lyon, From The Left -- World News Trust

  Nov. 13, 2006 -- It’s really a no-brainer. We simply HAVE to do it. We HAVE to IMPEACH George W. Bush. There really is no other way and no other priority in the wake of the Democratic takeover. ALL other priorities MUST lead to this.

   All I’m seeing at the moment is a return to the galling and spineless gentility of Democrats “making nice.” Seems Nancy Pelosi, and even John “Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee” Conyers, want only to extend olive branches and get along and not rattle any cages. Accountability, anyone? Well, MAYBE, if we’re lucky and they decide they really do need to the people’s business and start investigating some of the shenanigans that have gone on previously unchecked and mindlessly rubberstamped. But the most important rectifying mechanism, IMPEACHMENT, is “off the table.” Hello? Were they snoozing through November 7th? Did they not hear that previously-ignored group -– “We the People” –- literally roaring its collective heads off? The status quo is OUT, as are a great many of those who relentlessly, ruthlessly, and willfully insisted on it.

  IMPEACHMENT should absolutely be ON the table. It should be the centerpiece on that table, as a matter of fact. I’m looking at this from several perspectives to support this assertion.

  First, as a mom. If my kids committed some deliberate, egregious wrong, shouldn’t there be punishment? If I, as their mother, fail to show them that there are consequences for bad deeds, what will they learn? And what kind of mother will that prove me to be? Negligence wouldn’t even begin to describe it. You love them to absolute pieces. But that does NOT mean you turn a blind eye to their running amok. Bad behavior should NEVER be reinforced, let alone benignly ignored -- and certainly NEVER rewarded -– by allowing the bad behavior to continue unchecked. Even Dr. Laura would have to agree with that one.

  Second, as an employer. As a voter and taxpayer, I am the boss of my elected representatives -– whether they like it or not (fortunately, mine, Democrats all, probably do). THEY work for ME. It’s NOT the other way around. I have never been in any business where one of the employees, and yes, even the management, is not held to account for bad behavior, poor performance, getting the company sued, losing the company a lot of money, or face -– in bad PR, or lousy decision-making. NEVER. Poor results were NEVER supported or sustained, nor were the people responsible for them. Eventually, heads rolled. ALWAYS. NO program director at ANY radio station at which I worked EVER survived very long after presiding over a stretch of bad ratings. EVER. Sometimes the general manager ate it, too. I’ve seen instances where the housecleaning was so thorough that even the general sales manager and several secretaries and executive assistants to the purged upper-management people also got the boot. Those who’d preach the gospel of “running the government like a business” have never weighed in on this aspect of the business template.

  Third, as a citizen. The simplest Google check of “The Constitution of the United States of America” lists the opening salvo of said document as the Preamble, and the very first words of said Preamble as, “We the People.” See the first two sentences of the previous paragraph. That’s how our most sacred of sacred founding documents starts out -– referencing “We the People.” So we’re the owners, operators, beneficiaries, and supervisors. The buck stops with us as citizens of the country whose very conscience is that Constitution. And we have a huge responsibility -– to ourselves, and to our future. We have a responsibility to tell this president and EVERY president after him that you CANNOT commit these crimes without consequence. The concept of “the presidency” and “the free ride” are not interchangeable. Anyone who aspires to be president should be put on notice that they not only serve at our pleasure, they’re obligated to do right by our pleasure, and not break our laws, not commit international crimes, not take unilateral actions that needlessly squander thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and our credibility and moral standing in the community of nations. The more hideous the crime, the more grave should be the punishment. That’s why IMPEACHMENT is in place as a tool of the people’s governance. In the case of George W. Bush, especially, there can be no consequence less than IMPEACHMENT -– AND removal from office. That’s because of the magnitude and number of the high crimes and misdemeanors he has either committed himself, or caused or allowed others below him to commit in his name and for his sake. There truly is no other option available, if indeed we claim to stand for “liberty AND JUSTICE -– for ALL.”

  This leads me to an additional argument in favor of IMPEACHMENT (which, yes, I put in capital letters -– the better to make it obvious and to drive it home). We owe it to history, and not only to send a cautionary advisory to all future presidents to discourage criminality. We owe it to history to rehabilitate the very concept itself. IMPEACHMENT has been cheapened, perverted, and bastardized, by the republi-CONS who persecuted Bill Clinton for everything but violating the kitchen sink, and finally settled on his lying about cheating on his wife. For THAT embarrassingly petty and miniscule technicality, we actually impeached a president. What does that say about the penalty of IMPEACHMENT? It’s been rendered utterly pathetic, tragically tarnished, humiliatingly diminished, ridiculous, toothless. It’s become virtually meaningless -– a shade, a farce, a joke -– a really bad joke at that. And as of now, that’s how it stands for the future. The very idea of IMPEACHMENT absolutely MUST be rehabilitated, so that it once again carries the full weight of the singularly, staggeringly profound consequence that it was designed and intended to be.

  Just as all future presidents must be served notice that they flout our nation’s laws at their peril, we should also serve notice that IMPEACHMENT does indeed count for something deadly serious. It is not a move to be undertaken capriciously or over trifles. If this particular president is NOT forced to face such punishment for crimes almost ungodly in number and scope, high crimes and misdemeanors in every sense of the word, then what on earth do we stand for as a purported nation dedicated to the rule of law and justice for all? What does that say about us as Americans? Indeed, what does that say about the very dream that is America?

  We do NOT have an absolute monarch in charge in this country, even though it’s seemed so for more than five years now. That’s not what America is about. That’s not what it was founded or originally intended to be. Quite the contrary. Our very existence as a nation arose in resistance and in opposition to absolute monarchy. And if we do not mete out punishment befitting the crimes in the case of this president, George won’t be the only one who will not have learned anything about what it means to be a responsible American citizen -– obligated to the pursuit of justice and a more perfect union. Neither will we.

  Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!!

  Then go DO something about it.

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   Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations KRTH-FM,KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, RKO Radio Networks,and KTLA-TV.  She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in 1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print, for the Associated Press.  She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at work on a new craft book for kids and friends.  A lifelong Democrat who began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie, and Tom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us -- from the Left.

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