> Violation of International law. Violation of his oath of office, Treason,
> Voilation of the U.S. constitution, and International war crimes.
"Steve Thomas" <misledrkstar@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
> The evidence? The evidence? The evidence? The evidence? The
> evidence? Cite please?
Torture, War of Agression, A nonstop campaign of lies, Violation of the
U.S. constitution, Illegal surveilance of AmeriKKKans, Katrina Fiasco,
Selling AmeriKKKan interests to the Israelis, Covering up Saudi Arabian
Complicity in 911, Allowing 911, Lying about 911, Ordering the EPA to
claim
that there was no environmental hazzard after 911, Censoring Science,
Exposing the Valarie Plame as a CIA operative, Lying about investigating
the
matter, lying to the AmeriKKKan public about firing those responsible,
etc.
etc. etc.
Published on Friday, August 1, 2003 by the Seattle Times
Bush's High Crimes Against the Nation
by Walter Williams
George W. Bush has knowingly deceived the American people on the two
overriding policy issues of his presidency - the invasion of Iraq and the
deep tax cuts.
Other presidents have lied. Only Bush has repeatedly duped Congress
and the public to thwart their exercise of informed consent.
He is the first president to use propaganda as the main weapon in
selling his policies. Bush's unprecedented pattern of deception may
constitute an impeachable offense.
To date, only the deception in Iraq has brought forth the "I" word.
The case for impeachment is materially strengthened, however, when Iraq is
combined with Bush's 2001 and 2003 propaganda campaigns to convince the
public that tax filers with lower levels of income benefited more from his
tax cuts than the nation's richest families.
Hoodwinking the public that Saddam posed a perilous immediate danger
to the United States is Bush's greatest treachery. New York Times
columnist
Paul Krugman observed: "If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the
war
is arguably the worst scandal in American history."
John Dean, counsel to the president during Watergate, wrote in
mid-June: "Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security
intelligence data, if proven, could be a 'high crime' under the
Constitution's impeachment clause."
Before the U.S. invasion, the strong consensus based on intelligence
community information held that there were only negligible Iraqi ties with
al-Qaida, no nuclear weapons program of any consequence, and limited
chemical and biological weapons programs at most.
Lacking hard facts, as evidenced by his now much-discussed deception
in his State of the Union address that Iraq sought to buy uranium in
Africa,
Bush mixed misinformation, distorted allegations and unsubstantiated
rumors
to persuade the public of the imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein.
The experience with the massive tax cuts for families and
individuals
in both 2001 and 2003 makes patently clear how Bush used the same
unscrupulous tactics over time. Moreover, the level of the deception is
staggering, as indicated by Bush's 2003 proposal to eliminate taxes on
taxable cor****ate dividends.
Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and
Policy
Priorities pointed out: "The group with incomes over $1 million - which
consists of about 226,000 tax filers in 2003 - would receive roughly as
much
in benefits as the 127 million tax filers with income below $140,000.
Stated
another way, the top 0.2 percent of tax filers would receive nearly as
much
from the tax cut as the bottom 95 percent of filers combined."
Claiming that the 127 million tax filers with incomes of under
$140,000 are the big winners when 226,000 of the richest tax filers
benefit
nearly as much is surely world-class policy deception.
But is it a high crime that warrants impeachment, as was the case
with
Watergate?
Republican operatives breaking into the Democratic Party's national
committee headquarters and President Nixon's covering it up clearly
constituted crimes. Bush's propaganda campaign to hide how much the tax
cuts
benefited the rich is more likely to be viewed by the public as the stuff
of
politics in which politicians make inflated claims about the im****tance of
a
proposed policy and its likely benefits and ignore potential problems.
In actuality, the president's purposeful duping of the public on the
nation's most critical policy issues strikes at the heart of American
constitutional democracy when it robs the electorate of informed consent.
This fraudulent act makes a mockery of Abraham Lincoln's immortal words in
the Gettysburg Address, "that government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
Deeming presidential deception a high crime under the impeachment
clause can open a Pandora's box of problems. Yet, President Bush's actions
appear to be a far more serious assault on the Constitution than
Watergate.
I hold that interpreting Bush's pattern of deception on his most im****tant
policy proposals as a high crime against the nation is a necessary step in
rescuing American democracy.
Walter Williams is a professor emeritus at the Evans School of
Public
Affairs, University of Wa****ngton, and author of the forthcoming book,
"Reaganism and the Death of Representative Democracy."
|
