Jack & Jill Politics

I’m currently listening to talk radio out in my home state of Cali, and there’s an interview between the host and an author of a very interesting book, “The Case for Impeachment” by David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky.

I had a chance to read a blurb, but I’m going to buy the book and read the whole thing. We get an idea why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table. Lindorff just stated in his interview on station KGO in San Francisco, that Pelosi probably took impeachment off the table because the actual hearings might force her to admit Congress’ complicity in allowing the torture techniques used on prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Additionally, LA Congresswoman Jane Harman, who sat on the Congressional Committee dealing with torture, also admits she was briefed on the torture techniques and essentially, Congress signed off on them, anyway.

“Their fingerprints are all over this (the legislation allowing torture)”, said Lindorff.

What I remember from the Harman-Pelosi tiff is that once it became known that members of Congress knew that the Bush Administration was engaging in torture tactics on war prisoners, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, Pelosi moved to kick Harman off the Armed Services Committee for that dereliction. At the same time, Pelosi was equally busy denying Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney her seniority when she returned to the Hill in 2004, even though other white, male members of the House who left and returned, had their seniority reinstated.

Essentially, the foot-dragging on impeachment is because Pelosi’s paw-prints are all over legislation that virtually allowed Bush to ignore Congress and do whatever the hell he wanted, while Congress abdicated its oversight responsibility and broke the system of Checks and Balances by failing to check the Executive Branch in its grab for power.

Here’s some good news – Ms. Nancy has an opponent, and her name is Cindy Sheehan. Ms. Sheehan got enough signatures to get her name on the California ballot in the Fall and there’s enough pissed-off San Franciscans that, while not exactly delivering the vote to Cindy, they can do enough damage to send the message to Pelosi that you don’t ignore those who brought you to the dance.

Now we have an idea why Impeachment got taken off the table. It’s kinda hard to corral a horse when you deliberatly left the barn doors open and the horse took off to do whatever it wanted, with your (Congress) blessing.

I guess we can understand John Conyers’ foot-dragging on this issue – even though it would raise hell, he was threatened with the loss of his Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee if he moves on those articles of Impeachment first introduced by McKinney, and now being introduced by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. At least Kucinich got to read his articles of Impeachment (all 35 of them).

Can we force impeachment “back on the table” now?