I’m getting a funny feeling that Bush’s Watergate has begun.
“Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law,” said Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He portrayed the president’s actions as “Nixonian stonewalling.”
His House counterpart, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said Bush’s assertion of executive privilege was “unprecedented in its breadth and scope” and displayed “an appalling disregard for the right of the people to know what is going on in their government.”
The Democrats may not have wanted to go down the impeachment road, but their hands may be forced. There seems to be a growing consensus that something must be done. And, since no one wants to make Dick Cheney the president, we are seeing a scorched earth campaign against Bush’s quail-hunting sidekick.
Signs are everywhere. Sally Quinn suggesting that John Warner have a Goldwateresque talk with Cheney. Dick Lugar and George Voinovich jumping ship on Iraq. The Washington Post doing a four-part expose on the vice-president. And, now, a full-blown constitutional crisis over executive privilege in both the Oval Office and the OVP. Even Orrin Hatch voted for some of these subpoenas.
Of course, none of this will accomplish anything if the Republicans aren’t willing to threaten to impeach the vice-president.
In my opinion, the administration has never had any alternative but to stonewall because they have committed offenses that would so outrage the public if they were known, that impeachment would be a slam-dunk.
But their wanton obstruction of justice might not be enough to outrage the public and force the Republicans’ hands. It’s time to get our shoulders up against this wall of secrecy and start pushing.
