http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/159751,CST-EDT-jesse05.articleCongress must insist Bush isn't above law
BY JESSE JACKSON
Should President Bush be impeached? The very idea seems extreme, if not loony. Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has explicitly ruled impeachment off the Democratic majority's agenda. But activists and legal scholars are organizing to pressure Democrats to begin impeachment hearings. And the incoming chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, has issued two remarkable studies on abuses of presidential authority, raising the question of impeachable offenses.
The Gingrich Congress' attempt to railroad President Clinton out of office gave impeachment a bad press. It is scorned as irresponsible, vindictive, partisan spitball politics. Rather than addressing the challenges the nation faces, impeachment, many pundits argue, wastes months on harsh, divisive wrangling. And of course, in 1998, the public punished Republicans -- ultimately leading to the toppling of Gingrich himself.
But in the current circumstances, the question isn't merely rhetorical or partisan. While in office, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have asserted an extraordinary array of extra-constitutional powers. Bush argues that he has the right to declare war on his own. He claims he can designate any American an "enemy combatant." For those under that suspicion, he claims the right to wiretap them without warrants, arrest them without charges, detain them without lawyers, torture them without judicial review and hold them until the war ends. He also says that neither Congress nor the public has any right to review his decisions, or to gain access to the papers that he chooses to keep secret. Because Bush himself says the war on terror will last for decades, the scope of this assertion is staggering.
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How do we hold presidents accountable when they trample these limits? Presidents cannot be indicted. They are immune from civil lawsuits on the basis of their official actions. The only recourse in the Constitution is impeachment.
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What if the president and his administration refuse to cooperate with Congress in this inquiry? What if they deny access to all documents, refuse to testify and issue "signing statements" stating that the president will not abide by the laws that Congress passes? Then the Constitution offers only two options: Vote the president out of office, and Bush is due to depart in 2009. Or impeach Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. In my view, it should not come to that -- but Congress must act to defend the Constitution before America turns completely into an elected dictatorship.
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