Prominent figures ask MoveOn to Move on Impeachment
To Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Executive Director:
With more than 3 million members, MoveOn plays a vital role not only in shaping public policy, but in educating the American public about the most important political issues of the day. With this power comes a responsibility to engage with these issues in as forthright a manner as possible.
Until now, MoveOn has declined to call for the impeachment of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, citing a purported lack of interest among its membership. But, as many frustrated members have pointed out, they have not been asked. It has recently come to light that MoveOn is quietly conducting an online poll on the question among a small group of its members. We applaud this encouraging first step but hope that MoveOn will go further by soliciting feedback from its entire membership. When asked why the poll was not taken of all members, a MoveOn organizer explained:
Rarely do we send out a survey like this to the whole membership (we work very hard to send no more than one email to our members per day; the more they receive the less likely they are to open any of them, there is also an issue of bandwidth capabilities). We generally only do that when we have to act immediately or when we are acting on very specific legislation.
We feel confident that the membership of MoveOn will forgive the organization a single e-mail about a question of such urgency and importance. And we would remind MoveOn that specific legislation on impeachment already exists. H Res 333, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), and cosponsored by Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) calls for the impeachment of Vice-President Cheney on the grounds that he manipulated intelligence “to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq.”
Few will dispute that lying the nation into a disastrous war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis rises to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” and that these allegations merit serious examination by Congress. On April 28, 2007, Americans in more than 125 locations around the country took to the streets to demonstrate their support for impeachment. That same weekend, delegates to the annual convention of the California Democratic Party, the largest state chapter of the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Two days later, speaking on NPR, leading antiwar Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) pointedly said that impeachment was “on the table” in Congress.
The time has come for the Bush administration to be held accountable. We respectfully urge MoveOn to exercise leadership on the question of impeachment and to begin an open dialogue with its members about the issue. As MoveOn likes to say, “Every member has a voice.”
Thought you all might appreciate knowing about this. The petition is signed by:
Medea Benjamin
Elaine Brower
Steering Committee, World Can’t Wait, mother of U.S. Marine
Tim Carpenter
Director, Progressive Democrats of America
Noam Chomsky
MIT
Marjorie Cohn
President, National Lawyers Guild
Elizabeth de la Vega
Former federal prosecutor and author of U.S. v. George W. Bush et. al.
Jane Dugdale
Coordinator, Bryn Mawr Council of MoveOn/Operation Democracy
Bob Fertik
President, Democrats.com and ImpeachPAC.org
Elizabeth Holtzman
Former Congresswoman, member of House panel that voted to impeach President Nixon, author of The Impeachment of George W. Bush.
Jonathan Lethem
Writer
Dave Lindorff
Author of The Case for Impeachment
Dennis Loo
Co-editor of Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney
Cynthia McKinney
Former Congresswoman, author of impeachment legislation in the 109th Congress
Bill Moyer
Executive Director, Backbone Campaign
Brad Newsham
Founder, The Beach Impeach Project
John Nichols
Washington correspondent, The Nation, and author of The Genius of Impeachment
Jacob Park
A28 National Coordinator
Peter Phillips
Director, Project Censored, Co-editor of Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney
Cindy Sheehan
Director, Camp Casey Peace Institute
David Swanson
Co-founder, AfterDowningStreet.org coalition
Howard Zinn
Author of A People’s History of the United States
Trying to impeach Bush would be a mistake of epic proportions for the Democratic Party. All they had to do when they won the elections in 06 was to not overplay their hand. Impeaching Bush would not be one bridge too far, but two or three.
opinions powered by SendLove.to
24 Responses to “Prominent figures ask MoveOn to Move on Impeachment”
…Chomsky
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT
This was predictable, though.
If I was the RNC Chairman, I would welcome this foray with more enthusiasm for my 2008 electoral prospects than $50M in unfettered soft money contributions.
I believe it would be spelled b-a-c-k-l-a-s-h.
I am sure that MoveOn’s assessment of the importance of impeachment of Bush and Cheney will not be influenced at all by the fact that a Democratic Party member would become president.
It is ironic that an organization that was originally founded to resist a purely partisan impeachment drive has now become a prominent advocate of exactly the same thing.
It is political posturing- much to the same effect that the RNC’s attempted impeachment of Clinton achieved.
Instead, why don’t we just let Bush and Cheney hoist themselves by their own petards- they seem adequately capable of doing it for themselves. Just remember the “teflon Don” John Gotti finally got his come-uppance.
I don’t think there’s any momentum in Congress for impeaching Bush or Cheney. Even Dennis Kucinich’s motion to impeach is more symbolic than anything else. It would be extremely difficult to impeach both Bush and Cheney in the middle of two wars, and I doubt the Democrats would be dumb enough to try it. There have been other nonbinding impeachment resolutions passed by states and localities for Bush and Cheney- they mean very little except expression of extreme frustration with their leadership.
That’s why Bush wants it to go through the end of his term ( the War)- Job Security…..forgetting the obvious fact that VN ended with Ford , not Nixon.
Sorry, that doesn’t make any sense. Do you think that if the war ended tomorrow, that Bush would be impeached?
Like Kim, I doubt Congress will impeach the President. Elections have consequences. A lesson learned, I suspect, by the electorate.
But having said that, I don’t believe Move On is motivated in any way by some desire to see a Democrat become President. I believe their opposition to the war is genuine, however strident and, perhaps, politically unwise. Conservatives and Republicans ought to acknowledge that there is a great deal of unhappiness over the war and its progress.
PS. It’s not the media’s fault either. Ya know?
I wonder if they put Cynthia McKinney’s name on as the token black so the message would not sound like the rantings of a bunch of rich, white latte liberals who despise American, 90% of the American people, and democracy in general.
I wonder what the U.S. will look like when the Democratic party lead by the Moveon.org types are the one, dominate force in politics. The thought police will probably be a Cabinet post.
As much as I would like to see them impeached, and feel they deserve it, I don’t think it would be worth it at this point. Technically he doesn’t have much time left, and he isn’t going to be able to get Congress to do what he wants, so he cannot do any more damage. The only danger I see is an invasion of Iran, but I think that is past since the EU is beginning to take a tougher stance, and the position of the current Iranian government is weak enough within its own country that any belligerent position it takes is just a natural release of hot air.
I’ve thought for a while that the Democrats have held back investigating how we got into the war in Iraq- they haven’t really done that much to hold Bush/Cheney accountable. The reason for that is that many of them went along with it out of fear of losing the 2002 election, and also that it could actually put our national security in jeopardy if the country was distracted by impeaching both the president and the vice president at the same time.
I actually think they deserve it, but that the environment in Washington would get even more poisonous than it is now. Its sort of the same rationale that Ford used for the Nixon pardon. The nation has to survive in one piece. That does not mean that individual organizations won’t continue to call for impeachment.
kritter,
I don’t think there’s any momentum in Congress for impeaching Bush or Cheney either but it is rather telling to read the sterling tactics the right chooses to employ in defense of Bush and Cheney.
Yet another reason to keep MoveOn at arms length.
Steve K- I really blame right wing talk shows, that millions listen to, and that bring out the worst instincts of those on the right. There’s an aggressive meanness, a willingness to say anything to bring down a liberal that has really taken hold on the far right. Unfortunately, I don’t see much hope for it changing anytime soon. That’s not to say that the far left doesn’t have its nuts as well, but they don’t have radio shows with 10 million listeners. The far left’s realm is the internet.
Political posturing, by the time Move On gets the survey done, the signatures collected for any petition to recall, arranged congressional support for a recall and finally went through all of the investigations and proceedings to actually impeach his term would be over. As far as the right goes, they could not have written a better script for the left themselves. The call for impeachment will is yet another way for them to paint the left as loony, and Move On handed it to them on a platter.
I don’t think it makes that much sense, but I don’t think it will do that much harm either. The left can point to how the right DID impeach a president that was both popular and successful. I don’t think what Move-On is doing is any loonier than that.
Ashen Shard wrote:
> The only danger I see is an invasion of Iran
Air strikes, maybe, but no big land operation. It’s 80 vs. 25 million people, much larger and tougher terrain, and a government that’s well-armed for conventional defense, not just the terrorism that has made it notorious for years.
Even air strikes are not guaranteed.
Mission Accomplished!?! Sure glad the chickenhawks and neocons are being taken less and less seriously each and every day.
Amid GOP warnings, Bush threatens to veto new Iraq bill
Republicans confront the President yesterday… Vice President goes to Iraq today… hummmm.
Less and less every day.
MoveOn.org was a good thing when it began. Now it’s appallingly radical in tone.
i think Cheney went to try to order the Iraqi Parliament not to take their vacation, and to let Saudi King Abdullah know that Bush plans to keep the troops in Iraq until he leaves office.
This coincides with a report from the military that Petraeus will need them to stay until ’08. That may have been the impetus for the impromptu visit to the Oval Office by the GOPers. They may feel that Bush is just yanking their (and their constituents) chain on this war. Why else would they tell him his credibility is shot?
Does anyone else find it ironic that a liberal group that got its start campaigning against the impeachment of President Bush is now being asked by liberals to campaign in favor of the impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney?
I don’t see what good from come from this. There’s absolutely no way that the impeachment would ever deliver the votes to remove Bush or Cheney from office, and even if it did, the entire event would probably take about a year–if not more. The damage that this administration has been done, and removing Bush and/or Cheney from office six to twelve months before their term expires isn’t going to magically fix all that they’ve done. Worse, it threatens to distract from and undermine all efforts to end the war in Iraq.
Those who are calling for impeachment ought to direct their efforts towards concrete initiatives–not partisan fantasies that have no hope of coming to pass.
Ending the war this year could save hundreds–if not thousands–of American lives. Impeaching Bush and/or Cheney, on the other hand, wil not save a single American life and may even undermine support for ending the war and end up costing even more American lives.
It is time our children see how we adults can work hard for justice to be served. They need to see us do the right thing and get these Neo con-men out of the White House as soon as possible. What our children now see is more people die every day because we adults don’t stop this Iraq maddness.
It is our money they are spending to do as they wish–to feed their chilling manifesto, “Project for the New American Century” (www.newamericancentury.org) . Go into most any public school, or senior care facility and you can see how our money is not being put to its best use. So little of our money gets to where it is most needed in our society.
We MUST impeach them now–Cheney first, then Bush. Then get behind David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the Government Accountability Office (www.gao.gov), and see how our common wealth is being spent, or often, mis-spent. We know what needs to be done so let’s get moving. Move On!
Our children are watching.
PS – Demand that PBS broadcast the BBC documentary by Adam Curtis, “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.”
Well, as an American, I think they both deserve it, but the long, drawn out battle would not be worth it, and would fail in the end.
As a Democrat, I don’t think Pelosi should go back on her word. Its more important to judge the ’08 candidates by who would continue some of the disasterous policies that have been put in place, and who would change them. I would really like to see someone win who is more internationalist than neocon, as US standing in the world has plummeted by a mile.
Today’s headlines all read “Bush Told War is Harming the GOP”, so he is driving his own party off a cliff into oblivion. The Republicans are going to have a hard time overcoming this in ’08.
Public forum on impeachment with Congressman Peter Welch
Initiate investigation of Bush and Cheney now
Initiate impeachment now
Who: Peter Welch wants to hear why Vermonters support impeachment!
What: Public Forum to discuss Impeachment, the Constitution, and Democracy
Where: Hartford High School, White River Jct., Vermont
When: Saturday May 12, 11am-12:30pm
Why: The most corrupt administration in history continues to escalate its abuses of absolute power in the executive office. We, the people, need to escalate our dissent! This is our opportunity to tell Peter Welch to initiate investigation of Bush and Cheney and if the investigation supports the charges to impeach!
“Yes–important investigations are going on in Congress. But not quite all the right investigations,” said Liza Earle of Richmond, one of the organizers of the campaign for impeachment. “We want Peter Welch to take these investigations to the next level of accountability and help steer them to Bush and Cheney.”
“Right now Congress is conducting not one investigation of George W. Bush or Richard B. Cheney,” said James Marc Leas, another of the organizers. “Congress is acting as if Bush and Cheney are above the law. All the investigations concern underlings, like Alberto Gonzales and Condoleeza Rice, who, like Rumsfeld, can be replaced while the war, the torture, the spying without a warrant, the detentions without trial, and the lies continue. And while Bush and Cheney remain in power directing the killing, exposing our soldiers, and wasting our resources in a war based on lies. And while they plan further escalation.”