Robert Parry broke the Iran-Contra Affair in early 1986. Only the rest of the Washington Press was using Ollie North as a major anonymous source, and they just couldn’t give him up. They asked him if Parry’s story was true, and North said, “no,” and that was good enough for them. (Sound familiar?)

So Parry remained alone until a Middle East paper picked up the trail a good 6 months later. Nonetheless, it was Parry who broke the story of the decade.

Now he has a new piece up on his website, Consortiumnews.com, titled, “War or Impeachment”.

[Gory details on the flip]
This was published on Tuesday, before Bush’s speech, and two full days before Zogby put up the numbers, earlier today, that

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.

So, Parry was not responding creatively to Zogby’s numbers. He was writing out of something deeper. (Call it the memory of how Ronald Reagan was never held accountable for his crimes, and how we continue to suffer because of that unto this very day.) Zogby simply confirms that Parry is really onto something that is alreayd resonating with American people, even as the Beltway Dems–and even much of the blogosphere–are not yet even up to peeing in their pants at the thought.

Parry begins by saying we’re in for a bout of “leveling” with the American people about Iraq, but that “leveling” is just the latest spin. In contrast, there are two hard truths:

First, whatever lies ahead in the Iraq War, the outcome is almost certain to be far worse for Iraqis and Americans than it would have been if the U.S.-led invasion had never happened.

Then comes the heart of this killer piece:

The second hard truth is that the American people have only two choices on what to do next: they can continue to send their young soldiers into the Iraqi death trap for at least the next several years and hope for the best, or they can build a movement for impeaching George W. Bush and other administration officials – and then try to make the best of a bad situation in Iraq.

Although the realistic prospects for electing a Congress in 2006 that would act against Bush may appear slim, an impeachment movement would create at least a focus for a national political campaign, much like the Republicans used the Contract with America to gain their congressional majorities in 1994.

An impeachment strategy would have two other benefits: it would create the framework for an official investigation into the deceptions that led the nation to war in 2002-2003 (as well as into the incompetence with which the war was fought) and it would offer a legal structure for achieving some accountability.

No accountability means that a precedent has been set for future presidents misleading the nation into other aggressive wars of choice and paying no price.

While many liberals and Democrats reject an impeachment strategy – fearing that it would be too confrontational and carry too many political risks – there are dangers, too, in again trying to finesse the Iraq War, as Democrats did in the disastrous elections of 2002 and 2004.

Arguably, the Democrats would be no worse off – and might actually be in control of the government – if they had stood up to Bush’s war hysteria in 2002 and made the case in 2004 that the war must be brought to a swift conclusion. If Election 2006 is a reprise of the past two elections, the Republicans might actually gain ground against a demoralized Democratic base.

I don’t know about you. But that’s the sanest thing I’ve read all week. Maybe all month. Maybe all year.  Robert Parry, American Hero, strikes again.