Congress a Bigger Threat to Constitution than Bush

I'm not so worried about Bush. Sure he is a corrupt President who has killed thousands of people and nearly destroyed America. And yes, he has violated many parts of the Constitution. But he does not threaten the integrity of the Constitution itself. That is because the authors of the Constitution were very smart. They knew there would be corrupt Presidents and provided a remedy just in case. That remedy is impeachment. When a President commits "high crimes and misdemeanors" the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach, hold a trial, convict and remove from office the wayward miscreant.

This is not unlike the laws against robbing banks. People rob banks all the time. But people are not worried about the law itself being undermined. That is because the police and the courts catch most banks robbers, try them and send them to jail. The law works well in this case.

But imagine if the police said they weren't going to bother with catching bank robbers because it was a distraction. And suppose the courts said they were not going to try bank robbers because it would tie up the courts. Or even worse, imagine if the sheriff wanted to use the high crime rate to help win the next election, so he let the bank robbers go. If that happened then the laws against robbing banks would become meaningless. Banks would become obsolete. This behavior by the police would threaten the rule of law far more than the actual robbing of the banks.

Well this is exactly what happened when Pelosi said "Impeachment is off the table." The inaction of the Democrats in the face of these obvious crimes is doing more to undermine the Constitution than Bush's original crimes. Bush is just a crook. But Congress is far worse. They are the crooked cops who look the other way.

Every member of Congress takes an oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". They don't take an oath to bring home the pork or to get reelected. It is time for Congress to do their most important job and to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney.

There are a few members of Congress who take their Oath of Office seriously. Dennis Kucinich has introduced HRes 333 to impeach Dick Cheney. He now has over 20 cosponsors. But the central leadership of the Democratic party continues to be complicit in Bush's crimes. If Congress does not impeach then history may judge them more harshly then it judges Bush and Cheney.