On May 20, 10:44=A0am, "V-for-Vendicar"
<Just...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Steve Thomas" <misledrks...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote
>
> > I would say the one with ignorance =A0is the one who cant cite
specific
> > evidence to his charges.
>
Gonna have to do better than an opinion piece dude, youll get
laughed out of court.
MMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRROOOOONNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Published on Friday, August 1, 2003 by the Seattle Times
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Bush's High Crimes Against the Nation
> =A0 =A0 =A0 by Walter Williams
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 George W. Bush has knowingly deceived the American people on
t=
he two
> overriding policy issues of his presidency - the invasion of Iraq and
the
> deep tax cuts.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Other presidents have lied. Only Bush has repeatedly duped
Con=
gress
> and the public to thwart their exercise of informed consent.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Hoodwinking the public that Saddam posed a perilous
immediate =
danger
> to the United States is Bush's greatest treachery. New York Times
columnis=
t
> Paul Krugman observed: "If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the
w=
ar
> is arguably the worst scandal in American history."
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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."
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Before the U.S. invasion, the strong consensus based on
intell=
igence
> 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Lacking hard facts, as evidenced by his now much-discussed
dec=
eption
> in his State of the Union address that Iraq sought to buy uranium in
Afric=
a,
> Bush mixed misinformation, distorted allegations and unsubstantiated
rumor=
s
> to persuade the public of the imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 The experience with the massive tax cuts for families and
indi=
viduals
> 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget
an=
d 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
mu=
ch
> in benefits as the 127 million tax filers with income below $140,000.
Stat=
ed
> another way, the top 0.2 percent of tax filers would receive nearly as
muc=
h
> from the tax cut as the bottom 95 percent of filers combined."
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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
benefi=
t
> nearly as much is surely world-class policy deception.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 But is it a high crime that warrants impeachment, as was the
c=
ase with
> Watergate?
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Republican operatives breaking into the Democratic Party's
nat=
ional
> committee headquarters and President Nixon's covering it up clearly
> constituted crimes. Bush's propaganda campaign to hide how much the tax
cu=
ts
> 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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."
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 Deeming presidential deception a high crime under the
impeachm=
ent
> 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.
>
> =A0 =A0 =A0 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."
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