Get Out the Razor

That same old rusty one belonging to Occam, that is.

Move your gaze away from your navel, and consider this:

A total of 64% of American voters say that President George W. Bush has abused his powers as president. Of the 64%, 14% (9% of all voters) say the abuses are not serious enough to warrant impeachment, 33% (21% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses, but he should not be impeached, and 53% (34% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses and Mr. Bush should be impeached and removed from office.

...

A total of 70% of American voters say that Vice President Dick Cheney has abused his powers as vice president. Of the 70%, 26% (18% of all voters) say the abuses are not serious enough to warrant impeachment, 13% (9% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses, but he should not be impeached, and 61% (43% of all voters) say the abuses rise to the level of impeachable offenses and Mr. Cheney should be impeached and removed from office.

Ponder this, idiot Democrats and equally idiotic Democratic apologists and defenders: if 34% of all voters think Bush should be impeached and removed from office NOW, and if 43% of all voters think the same about Cheney NOW, how many do you think might join that group after a month or two of hearings? After they hear endless bloody, sickening details about exactly what this administration has done? What might the percentages be then...HMMMM?

I heard some idiot Democrat yakking with Randi Rhodes today. (I was dozing during the first part of the interview and woke up in the middle of it; Randi, as is her wont, never saw fit to identify the other person at any later point in the discussion. Back to radio school, Randi! I strongly suspect it was Ellen Tauscher, but I'm not sure.) This idiot Democrat spun the typical Dem yarn: Oh, my. Oh me oh my, why, YES! Of course, they DESERVE impeachment! But listen here, Randi, you need to convince me that impeachment is actually a smart move...POLITICALLY! Smart politically...for DEMOCRATS! That it won't hurt us...IN 2008!!

You may now vomit into that bag conveniently placed at your side.

As Dennis Kucinich might say, indeed, DID say:

You know, the administration will be in office for at least fourteen more months. They can cause a lot of damage in that time. They’re planning to attack Iran. When you think about the defense authorization budget including a provision that would retrofit Stealth B-2 bombers so they can carry 30,000-pound bombs, which would then be dropped on nuclear research labs, creating an humanitarian and ecological disaster, "What are we waiting for?" is the question, not "Why don’t we wait for the election?"

...

Since when does it become unfashionable to stand up for the Constitution, to stand up for our nation's laws, to stand up for international law, to stand up for moral law? Since when does it become inconvenient to take a stand that would help secure our democracy once again? I mean, we’re really -- it’s all at risk right now, and it’s time that the Democratic leadership exerted an effective influence. As a coequal branch of government, Congress cannot stand by and let this administration continue to undermine our Constitution. That’s why I introduced those articles of impeachment.

Or as I might say, indeed, DID say:

The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for.

And who says otherwise? The Democrats could -- and the most forceful means of doing so, the only method that is appropriate to this historic moment, the method that is absolutely required if we are to turn away from this catastrophic, murderous course, is impeachment. That is the one method the Democrats will categorically, absolutely not utilize -- because the Democrats are a crucial, inextricable part of the identical authoritarian-corporatist system that has led us to these horrors. They have all worked toward this end over many decades, Democrats and Republicans alike, and now the horrors manifest themselves explicitly, without apology, even with the sickening boastfulness of the mass murderer who is proud of what he has done, and who vehemently believes he is right.

So impeachment WON'T hurt the Democrats politically. Not even in terms of 2008. Why, it might HELP them -- and help them to an overwhelming victory. Not incidentally, it would also signal to the world that there are at least some people in our national life who give a damn about the Constitution, about the law (including international law), about moral law, about the value of human life, about civilization, about decency. It might save us from being unceremoniously heaved into the filthiest of trash heaps, where we deservedly belong.

More and more Democrats themselves admit that impeachment is the unquestionably appropriate remedy, and fully DESERVED. It won't hurt them politically. So why won't they do it?

One more time -- first, what I said that is excerpted above:

[Impeachment] is the one method the Democrats will categorically, absolutely not utilize -- because the Democrats are a crucial, inextricable part of the identical authoritarian-corporatist system that has led us to these horrors. They have all worked toward this end over many decades, Democrats and Republicans alike, and now the horrors manifest themselves explicitly, without apology, even with the sickening boastfulness of the mass murderer who is proud of what he has done, and who vehemently believes he is right.

Or as I put it in an earlier essay:

[F]or the reasons set forth above (and a full case would fill many volumes), the Democrats are not going to impeach any of these criminals, barring events entirely unforeseeable at present. And they will not for one overwhelmingly significant and determinative reason: always with regard to the underlying principles, and frequently with regard to the specifics, the Democrats are implicated in every single crime with which they would charge the members of the administration. The Republicans' crimes are their crimes.

...

Try to grasp this finally, before it is too late: the Democrats may differ from the Republicans on matters of detail, or emphasis, or style. But with regard to the fundamental political principles involved, everything that has happened over the last six years -- just as is the case with everything that has happened over the last one hundred years -- is what the Democrats want, too.

This should not be a difficult point to understand. The historical record is compelling in its clarity, and overpowering in its length and volume. A corporatist, authoritarian state is what the ruling elites want, and it is precisely what serves their interests, Republican and Democrat alike. They know it; they count on your inability or refusal to see it.

That's why they won't do it. That's why impeachment is "off the table." Try, please try for crap's sake, to understand this. I am weary of explaining it.

But I will keep explaining it, until at least 15 of you get it. At the current rate, I expect that to take until 2018.

Even now, I'm an optimist. Go figure.