Go Back to the B3 Home Page
Complaints, compliments, arguments? Email me.
<< [<< "Photo of the Week"] [Archive Index] [>>"Pissing off everybody, one group at a time."] >>
06/08/2003 Archived Entry: "Procter: 'Impeach Bush - we win even if we lose'"
'Impeach Bush - we win even if we lose' by Rich Procter
Clicking 'say something' link shows entire article
I believe any attempt to impeach George Bush for the high crime of lying America into a war, killing more than a hundred and fifty members of the Armed Forces (and counting), needlessly slaughtering thousands of Iraqis, plunging that country into anarchy and civil war, and squandering hundreds of BILLIONS of our tax dollars is doomed to failure.
I also believe it is imperative that American Progressives - the very people reading these words - create an environment that makes it impossible for Congress not to impeach Bush.
Why? Why push forward on impeachment if it's doomed to failure? First and most importantly, because we need to pry America out of the hands of the radical, ends-justify-the-means fanatics who have hijacked our Democracy. Secondly, truth matters. Bush lied our soldiers died, and are still dying. That's a crime. We've got to stand up and call him on this crime before he lies us into more wars, and we're looking at tens of thousands of deaths.
Just as important, it's the way to defeat Bush in '04. Radical Republican true believers impeached Clinton, even though they knew their impeachment strategy would fail. Impeaching Clinton was a brilliant offensive strategy for making an extremely popular President radioactive. For an entire year, vindictive, partisan Republican yahoos were able to "play offense" against the Democrats. Every day brought new cries of "Restore dignity to the office of President," "Where's the outrage?" and "Integrity matters." Their biggest victory showed up in the catastrophic Al Gore presidential campaign. The impeachment mess convinced Gore (wrongly) that to win, he had to "become his own man" (i.e. never mention 8 years of peace and prosperity produced by the Clinton/Gore partnership).
Karl Rove has next year all planned out for Dubya's Re-Coronation, right down to the "October Surprise" he'll spring to let AWOL George play Commander-in-Chief. He's got a 200 million dollar war chest to gin up ads replaying that footage of the Lyin' King Top Gunning it onto that flight deck, saying, "He made us proud, he's a bad-ass cowboy, he's got the bad guys on the run," blah blah blah. Rove is not prepared to play defense he's never had to. All the Bushies know how to do is attack. That's why even a failed impeachment effort is vital to defeating Bush - it's the best, fastest, most effective way to get the Bushies on their heels, stunned and reeling.
So considering the Democrats (except for Robert Byrd, God bless him) don't have the guts to push impeachment forward, and the Disney/General Electric/Rupert Murdoch/Michael Powell press aren't prepared to take this movement seriously, how can we make impeachment happen? Let's ask ourselves this question - how did the wingnuts do it, with virtually no ammunition, with Clinton? If we follow their strategy, we'll:
Energize The Base, and attack without mercy: Let's start from the premise that it actually makes a difference that the Bush Administration consistently lied for an entire year in order to commit this nation into pre-emptive, unilateral, catastrophic war, invading another sovereign nation with no provocation. Okay what would the wingnuts do about this?
Letters, faxes and emails to our elected representatives demanding impeachment: daily, unrelenting pressure for action.
Networked blogging: the web is the one place where progressives get a level playing field let's keep the pressure up, rally the troops, stoke the fire in the belly of the troops.
Letters to the Editor, columns for local newspapers: hitting the same themes over and over again Bush lied, soldiers died (and are still dying). Truth matters.
Make it personal: "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died" is a good bumper sticker, but "Bush Lied, Marine Sergeant Jonathon Lambert died" is a compelling story. If a Senator or Congressman gets a fax from the "Justice for the Family of Marine Lance Corporal Cedric Bruns," that's going to get some attention. These soldiers were human beings, with families who grieve and bright futures that have been snuffed out. That matters. If they died because of a cynical lie created for partisan political purposes, that really, really matters.
Make it a pocketbook issue: I'm astonished that no Democrat has brought up the pocketbook aspect of the Iraqi debacle. Gulf War I cost America about 10 billion dollars, because we had an actual coalition with heavyweight members committed to shouldering the financial burden. This war will cost at least 80 billion of what Dubya loves to call "your money." How do you want your money spent, folks? Shoveling bucks into open-ended, look-the-other-way-on-overruns contracts for Halliburton and Bechtel? Keeping a force of 150,000 American troops that were committed on a Bushie Lie in a country swirling down the vortex of chaos and civil war? Or maybe that money might be better spent restoring cuts to Head Start? Providing Health Care? Even, God forbid, financing the tax cut and staving off the bankruptcy of the American government for an extra six months?
Invite real conservatives to join us: Aikido is a martial art where you use your opponents' strength against them. Let's perform a classic Aikido move against the wingnuts. "Dear Bill Bennett, Newt, Rush you were soooooo right about morality, about the truth mattering, about restoring dignity to the office of the President. We invite you to join us in an effort to uncover this heinous crime. I'm sure you're as shocked as we are that American servicemen and women were killed because of a lie. Can there be a greater crime? We've learned so much from your efforts to promote virtue. Now its time for you to show us you really meant what you've been saying for the last decade."
Attack, attack, attack: The wingnut defense of Bush's lying us into war is falling out into two lines of defense: 1) We won, didn't we? Shut up. 2) No one cares - so let's move on. The second reason is why it's absolutely vital that we attack now, and keep up the assault until we breakthrough. Of course absolutely no one cared about Monica Lewinsky until the wingnuts made them care by doing all the things we must do generating an unrelenting barrage of letters, faxes, e-mails, meetings, demonstrations - whatever it takes.
Bush lied. Soldiers died. We Care. It matters...if we make it matter.
