[From the diaries by susanhu with minor edits.]
Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush
by Lewis H. Lapham
I would like to draw your attention to this essay in March 2006 issue of HARPER’S. Lapham bases much of his material on Congressman John Conyers Jr.’s December 18, 2005 Resolution. This Resolution invited the House of Representatives to investigate the Administration’s intent to go to war before congressional authorization, its manipulation of pre-war intelligence, its encouraging and countenancing torture, and its retaliating against critics. He also makes recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.
Of course, the request attracted little attention in the press, “scattered applause from left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on websites flying the flags of the militant right.”
Lapham wonders why Conyers did it. In January, in a telephone conversation, Conyers explains:
Continued below:
“To take away the excuse,” he said “that we didn’t know.” So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, “Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?” when the Bush Administraion declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insantiy, can say that “somehow it escaped our notice” that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.
There’s a portrait of Bush that is halfway erased.
We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country’s good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world’s evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation’s wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal – known to be armed and shown to be dangerous.
Who could add anything to that. I hope you can read the entire article, in Harper’s -better still Conyer’s Resolution. You see, Democrats are at work.
[note: It seems the Resolution was presented before the information of NSA domestic spying.]
Like Conyers, I can say, “I told you and you ignored me.”
And now picture Conyers as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The following sentence comes to mind: “At long last, have you no decency?”
(Sadly we know the answer.)
I subscribe to Harpers. Lapham did a nice job in his essay. Normally he’s a little over the top, but this time he meticulously lays out the case for impeachment. Go buy the magazine when it hits the stands, if you don’t already subscribe to Harpers. It’s a great read.
It amazes me when something like this gets ignored. But then again when Conyers calls for hearing she is given the basement to hold them in where no one ever goes and not one republican shows up. I’m with you Sybil. Thanks for writing this.
If you are not outraged then you are not paying attention. Not directed at anyone here.
Here’s a good link on Coyners’ Motion for Censure:
The Nation
Here’s the conclusion of the Nation Article
Here is Conyers’ report, 273 pages long. PDF File.
Sorry, meant he not she. I know John is a he…lol.
Unfortunately the Harper’s article isn’t available online. But you lucky eastcoasters have a chance to hear a fantastic-sounding impeachment debate with Lapham, Conyers, John Dean, Elizabeth Holtzman, and Michael Ratner, live and in person on March 2.
The rest of us will just have to do it ourselves.
I just read the Harper’s article. Its logic is unanswerable. Just the ammo we need to start a serious impeachment movement. Given the peeling away of neocons and old-time-Goppers, there might no longer be as much resistance as we expected. And while we’re at it, let’s thank whatever gods there be for Conyers. This guy deserves to live in the White House.
Harper’s articles from the current issue are not available on line. Instead they route you to a map of the USA telling you to go to your nearest newstand. lol. Right now you will find many of the Feb. 2006 articles posted and a long archive.
http://www.harpers.org
And Conyers didn’t have the additional ammo of the illegal NSA domestic spying.
I am reading a book called “bush on the couch” written by a Dr. J. Frank. He describes exactly the exact thing here. If you were to read this you would be enlightened to this mans mind and behavorial habits and the why it is that he does the things he does and says the things he says. Very good book to read, if you can muddle through the medical terms and mindset of a psychoanalysist, that is…:o)
Makes me wonder if the person who wrote the article, didnt read this book first…:o)
Makes me wonder if the person who wrote the article, didnt read this book first…:o)
It wouldn’t suprise me in the least. Sent an lte to the paper last summer…it wasn’t published, but a paragraph of that letter somehow turned up in one of the editors columns…was both flatterred and insulted, the latter because I was previously told that I am not qualified to write for that same paper, as my undergrad degree is in political science, not journalism! Hello?
I know, go figure!
If you’ve still got the evidence for this in your possession, and there is another newspaper in your city, even (or especially) an alternative weekly, go to them with this.
That editor must not be allowed to get away with stealing.
I once had a piece plagarized in a national weekly newspaper, from a story I wrote that was published in a well-known monthly. But the monthly wouldn’t follow up on it.
Your case is worse, because your piece was unpublished. At least I got paid for the original article. You got paid for nothing, and insulted to boot.
It’s a small town paper. And the other paper that is trying to get started in this town does pretty much the same thing, from what I hear (never sent an lte to tat one, was going to until I heard that)…Will check into an alternative weekly though, hadn’t thought of that one until you mentioned it.
But, in my instance, it wasn’t the article, a paragraph in another column just jumped out at me…someone just did a quick cut and paste…Everyone knows their own writing style, it just jumped out at me…
(Probably goes on a lot more often than people realize.)
Stopped submitting lte’s to them, BTW!
“Ukraine” BushCo.
They’re going to sit there and continue to spend our grandchildren’s livelihood on the army and the secret police. Duh.
Let’s get them the hell out of there. We need to march on Washington, drop everything. Everybody stop what you’re doing–we have to do this now.
We appear there in the millions and demand new elections in May.
Let him run us out of there like “the Bonus Army!” It would be the beginning of the end for BushCo. But, there has to be a beginning!