Did something happen yesterday?

[athelind]

CNN, Reuters, the BBC, NPR, Salon, and the Google Top Story aggregation all appear on my Google home page. Not a single mention of yesterday's presentation of Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush could be found in those headlines.

To their credit, and against my expectations, the news was not driven off the page by headlines gushing over the new iPhone. Salmonella scares and international conflicts dominate the page.

I think NewsHounds ("We watch FOX so you don't have to") summed it up well:

No matter what you think of it, this is news. News. Relevant, important, history-making news. It was live, on C-Span. Reality TV. Yet our most famous, trusted, 24/7/365 cable news media outlets are asleep at the wheel - or holding back. Neither is a good option.

They just earned their place on my regular reading rotation. So has The Raw Story, which gave us pretty much what it says on the tin: straight, clinical, factual reporting, with as little commentary, opinion or bias as is humanly possible. They've updated their story since last night, by the way -- since I originally linked to them early on in the Gentleman from Ohio's presentation, there's been more Raw Story to report.

The Reuters article reiterates Speaker Pelosi's opposition to impeachment:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she opposes trying to remove the Republican president who leaves office next January because such an attempt would be divisive and most likely unsuccessful.

...so attempting to impeach a President with one of the lowest approval ratings of all time would be "divisive"?

Or, as my friend kolchis said:

"We can impeach a President over cum stains, but not blood stains??"

Fair warning: Your Obedient Serpent isn't going to let this go. I am going to continue to hunt for information about these proceedings -- I hope to find a full transcript today -- and I will continue to urge your Congresscritters to vote in favor of it, and not let it get shoved in a drawer.

Perhaps nothing will come of this. Perhaps the news media aren't reporting it because they think nothing will come of it. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, however. If the public at large never HEAR about this, they will never have a chance to show their support, and inform Congress that... to borrow a slogan from the presumptive Democratic candidate... "Yes, we can!"

A couple of commentators in my journal have expressed the opinion that they're "waiting for the war crimes trial". So am I, dear reader, so am I -- but having our own nation admit culpability and take responsibility for this wanton disregard for national and international law is the first step toward seeing that happen.

If that offends you, feel free to drop this journal. You're in the wrong place.

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Comments

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

I do hope this isn't something that just gets swept under the rug. :p More censorship and blatant disregard for your own laws is something the country does not need more of.

[halfelf.livejournal.com]

I was at first amazed, then pissed off about the fact that this was not carried by CNN or any other major news outlet. It was on BoingBoing, though. It's STILL not being talked about. Instead, one of the stories on CNN.com is a birdpoop facial. This is news?

THIS is news. This is finally someone standing up and trying to do what's right. This is finally a Democrat with actual balls, rather than saying 'Oh bother, it's going to fail, so why try?' Heck, I'd want him for VP too.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

I do find myself wondering what good it is, now, to start impeachment proceedings against the semi-trained chimp when he'll be leaving office long before they could be completed.

There are two reasons, as I see it, for having waited so long:
(1) He's as lame-duck as he's ever going to be, and the Congress has grown increasinly hostile, making impeachment plausible.

(2) By waiting so long, we have guarded against having to hear the words "President Richard Cheney". As is always the case, one must take care when deposing a tyrant, lest his replacement be worse.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

A couple of other good reasons for the timing:

Scotty McClellan's decision to testify.

The Senate Intelligence Committee's Report on Prewar Iraq Intelligence.

Addendum

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Before any Clinton-impeachment-apologists point it out, Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice.

So, now, let's see here *holds arms to the side, palms up, in imitation of a balance scale*:

Perjury and obstruction of justice...thirty-freaking-five distinct charges, ranging from denial of civil rights to misleading the American people to inappropriate financial conduct to...damn, there's just no bloody comparison, is there?

[forthright.livejournal.com]

My feeling was that to impeach Bush before Cheney merely brought the real menace to the White House, and that (since the Democrats took back Congress) a Cheney impeachment could force a Cheney resignation, at the very least.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

And Kucinich did bring articles of impeachment against Cheney FIRST, last year -- but they haven't been acted upon.

As hitchkitty points out, that's a good reason to wait until now to bring them against Bush: yes, proceedings will almost certainly drag out until the January inauguration -- which means that Big Richard won't wind up in the Oval Office if they pass.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

I do agree with both the principle and with the specific implementation here. The biggest downside, I suppose, is that it runs the risk of a tit-for-tat 'impeachment war' scenario where impeachment is used solely as a political tool in the future.

Also, forgive my ignorance of American politics, but what happens to either set of charges if they aren't acted upon by the time that (one hopes) Obama is inaugurated in January? Presumably 'impeachment' is no longer actually possible?

And now, run-on sentences.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

What I fear is that a single frivolous impeachment, the end result of a six-year concerted witch hunt that could find nothing more compromising than a hesitation to be entirely candid about a sexual indiscretion that had nothing to do with the investigation, has so compromised the validity of the process that there is hesitation to invoke it in a clear-cut case of multiple offenses against the Constitution of the United States.

If the highest officials in the land cannot be held accountable for their actions using the legal framework set in place for exactly that, then they are, in fact, above the law, and the pretense of Democracy in the United States is a shadow play.

As for the timing: Bush has 224 days left in office. They impeached Clinton in 181 days, if memory served.

Even if this action does not get him removed from office, I think that even the first phase -- getting the Congress to confirm that, yes, at least some of these offenses listed are, indeed, "an impeachable offense, warranting the removal from office" -- is important.

It may be a valuable precursor for bringing the criminal charges these actions so richly deserve, be it in a United States court, or, if I may engage in a wishful fantasy of our country ever seeing fit to grow up and join the community of civilized nations, in the International Criminal Court.

Even if it's only a symbolic gesture, we have to make it clear, to ourselves, to the rest of the world, to posterity -- and above all, to the power-hungry motherless savages, past and future, who seek to wring the public coffers dry to polish their own tick-bloated egos -- that sacrificing all that is right and good about the American experiment for any cause is simply not acceptable.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

I wrote CNN asking why it wasn't covered. I expect no reply.

[eggshellhammer.livejournal.com]

I have a dream that I will fax hand-written letters of:
* THANKS, to Dennis Kucinich
* IMPLOREMENT, to my congressmen Michael Capuano
* THREATS OF FUNDING HER OPPOSITION IF SHE WEASELS, to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Lemme know when you get a transcript.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Well... I am waiting for the war crimes trial. But I am also pretty sure that anything that could happen - war crimes, impeachment, being tried for perjury, devastating civil suit - isn't going to really go anywhere.

So what I hope is that this impeachment business dredges up just how much the Republicans were all complicit in the poor behavior of their executive. Including - especially - McCain. I don't want these people to get away with the popular fiction that all the blame can be pinned on mean mister Bush and that nasty ol' man Cheney, while they were being perfect little angels with a sound grasp on fiscal reality.

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

I noticed this briefly mentioned in Reuters, and that's about it.

::B::

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Reuters has it: http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN09301988

[iceraptoress.livejournal.com]

Not a transcript, but the Belfast Telegraph has a good piece on it, including a list of all the articles that were presented.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Sweet! Thank you! I was hoping to find at least that. I'll repost it later.

[eggshellhammer.livejournal.com]

You might find it more productive to send a fax than an e-mail - a hand-written letter is best, but you probably don't have the time for that. You can use free services online to send a fax.

http://websearch.about.com/od/usefulsite1/tp/free-fax-online.htm

[haystack.livejournal.com]

Just a note for ya... CNN Headline News had a brief newsbite on Kucinich's presentation during the half-hour I watched 'em Wednesday-morning.