Take a Number

The other day, Bush said he couldn’t understand why in the world would some people say that millions of Americans have no health insurance. “Why, all they have to do is go to the emergency room,” he said.

Said this with the smirk, the insolent smug, contemptuous way he speaks to citizens.

People, particularly these politicians, these frightened beggars in suits, seem petrified about impeachment. It could wreck the country. Ridiculous. I’ve been around this business twice and we’re all still here and no politician was even injured. Richard Nixon lied during a war and helped get some 58,500 Americans killed and many escaped by hanging onto helicopter skids. Nixon left peacefully. Mike Mansfield of Montana, the Democratic Senate majority leader, said on television that the Senate impeachment trial of Nixon would be televised and there would be no immunity. That meant Nixon would have to face the country under oath and if he lied he would go to prison. He knew he was finished as he heard this. Mansfield said no more. He got up and left. Barbara Walters, on the “Today” show, said, “He doesn’t say very much, does he?”

The second time the subject was Bill Clinton for illegal holding in the hallway.

This time, we have dead bodies involved. Consider what is accomplished by the simple power of the word impeachment. If you read these broken-down news writers or terrified politicians claiming that an impeachment would leave the nation in pieces, don’t give a moment to them.

It opens with the appointing of an investigator to report to the House on evidence that calls for impeachment. He could bring witnesses forward. That would be all you’d need. Here in the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon came John Dean. His history shows how far down the honesty and honor of this country has gone. Dean was the White House counsel. Richard Nixon, at his worst, never told him not to appear or to remain silent in front of the Congress. Dean went on and did his best to fill prisons. After that came Alexander Butterfield, a nobody. All he had to say was that the White House had a taping system that caught all the conversations in the White House. Any of them not on tape were erased by a participant.

The same is desperately needed now. Curious, following the words, an investigator – the mind here sees George Mitchell and Warren Rudman, and you name me better – can slap a hand on the slitherers and sneaks who have kept us in war for five years and who use failing generals to beg for more time and more lives of our young. A final word in September? Two years more, the generals and Bush people say.

Say impeachment and you’ll get your troops home. — Jimmy Breslin

And here is the Attorney General today:

Check out this exchange with Republican Sen. Arlen Specter.

S: How can you get approval from sedated Ashcroft?

G: Can I continue?

S: No, answer my question.

G: Obviously there was concern about Ashcroft’s condition. There are no rules governing when Ashcroft decides he is well enough.

S: He had given us AG duties.

G: We knew he was ill…

S: Not making progress. Moving on. Do you think constitution govt can survive if Pres has unilateral authority to reject congress inquiries for Exec Privilege and prevent prosecution of claim?

G: Ongoing matter, I am recused, I cannot answer.

S: I am asking about constitutional law.

G: You are talking about an on-going issue.

S: No. Answer.

G: I won’t answer – it is ongoing controversy and I am recused.

Leahy: Calls for decorum (room is protesting).

S: Won’t pursue. This is hopeless. You are not just AG, you are a lawyer. This is a fundamental issues separate from USA resignations. Other subject. Do you have a conflict regarding the firing of US AGs?

G: Yes.

S: Do you have a conflict of interest about Miers?

G: Yes. I won’t answer.

S: Let’s find one you will answer. How about death penalty case? Charlton contacted your office and said case was not appropriate for dp. Testimony that AG spent 5-10 minutes on the issue…is this accurate?

G: I have no specific recollection of this case. But we have a detailed process for capital case review.

S: I am not interested in that. I want an answer to my question. You don’t remember a case regarding a man’s execution?

G: I have no recollection of the conversation.

S: Do you disagree with the testimony?

G: I can’t agree or disagree.

America no longer has a presidential administration – it has a crime mob in charge.

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8 Responses

  1. the media is “beggars in suits” too. why isn’t the above exchange on the front of the new york times that arrives every damned day in front of my door.

    why are we not in the streets? comfortable cancels out scared? or other way around?

  2. Like you say, Naomi, the media doesn’t report what happens.

    We are comfortable and NOT scared. Or scared of terrorists instead of the real issues of our lives as citizens. Or we are struggling enough just to get through our own lives, too wrapped up in the personal, or too wrapped up in the distractions that swirl around us.

    I looked at Bush the day he started campaigning and knew who he was and where it might lead. But not everyone has insight; they have to be shown or told. And the media failed us – it glossed over a failure of a man who had failed at everything he had ever done and was bailed out by his family. Drunk driving, cocaine, the lack of military service, the failed businesses, the smarmy people who surrounded him, it was all no big deal to the media.

  3. The media is of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. They’ve done okay under this administration, haven’t they?

  4. I don’t think I meant newspaper corporations specifically but rather the corporations who advertise in the media and are the constituency the media serves, rather than the viewing audience. But you are correct that some corporations have done very poorly, and perhaps it is only a few corporations who have done monstrously well, such as ExxonMobil, Halliburton, etc.

  5. I will often watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer in addition to Olbermann and of course Stewart and Colbert. I think this gives me a pretty good perspective on the day’s events if I want to know how people not reading blogs all day should be aware of.

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