prescient sentiment from Nixon impeachment hearings

[shockingelk]

I'm reading John Dean's Worse Than Watergate, (which is really good - give it to people on the fence who may take offense at potty mouth in Lies and the Lying Liars).

When speaking of the fact that Bush mislead congress with WMD claims, Dean reproduces a quote from the Nixon impeachment hearings by Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) It rings truer today than it did in 1974:

"We must give notice to this president and other Presidents that deceit and deception over issues as grave as going to war and waging war cannot be tolerated in a constitutional democracy."
- Elizabeth Holtzman
Debate on Articles of Impeachment,
Hearings of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Reps.
93rd Congress, 2nd Session, p 494
1974

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Somehow, we have to educate, or re-educate, the people...

to a principle like the one Holtzman expressed. The press must re-establish principles of right and wrong in a democracy, and stop framing every issue as "political." Today, I'm afraid, thousands of blast faxes would come out of Rove's office to refute Holtzman's statement in the public mind, emphasizing that she is a Democrat. When the issue is as clear as this issue is, then and now, the mainstream press needs to throw those faxes in the bin, and tell the people that our system is threatened. Rush, et.al., will blast the fax spin to the wingnuts, but it's time the majority heard some plain truth.

[shockingelk]

4. They have a lot of thumbs in dykes already

... once the public accepts that they've lied to manipulate a situation, the whole damn will come tumbling down ... and we'll see an election map like 84, but red and blue reversed!

[shockingelk]

2. Another, from Lincoln!

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as you propose. If to-day he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us;" but he will say to you, "Be silent: I see it, if you don't."
- Abraham Lincoln
Letter to William H. Herndon, February 15, 1848

[DeepModem Mom]

5. Wow! That's amazing forethought from Lincoln...

who understood the burden of war so well, that I remember reading a historian's view that he carried the whole burden of the Civil War on his own shoulders. When you look at pictures, you see it. And his eloquence, on the subject of going to war, in the Second Inaugural:

"On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it-- all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war-- seeking to dissolve the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came."

Oh, man -- that brings tears to my eyes, and reminds me why I still love this country. I hope we make it through the national crisis we face now --

[0007]

3. Wake up!!

"We must give notice to this president and other Presidents that deceit and deception over issues as grave as going to war and waging war cannot be tolerated in a constitutional democracy."
- Elizabeth Holtzman