Maine Owl

Newspaper supports hearings

I'm a few days late in posting on this. After Downing Street calls the Bangor Daily News January 9 editorial, Cheney Impeachment, the "first major newspaper to editorialize in favor of impeaching Cheney."

I don't know if you'd consider the BDN "major." I suppose it is around here, even if it's a few steps below the Boston Globe in New England. But the editorial is very significant. It is a carefully worded piece that backs into the issue a little bit, though clearly it follows the lead of US Representative, Mike Michaud.

The BDN says hearings should be,

a dispassionate examination of the manner in which Mr. Cheney and this administration have stretched the executive branch to the point of distorting its constitutional definition would be enlightening, and could help rebalance the powers of the federal government.

I say good for Mike and good for the BDN. And don't forget, this is a Republican, pro-Susan-Collins newspaper.

I actually feel that both Michaud and this editorial have it right. It is hearings, now, that could make all the difference for the future of our country. They would finally take a step towards stopping Bush-Cheney impunity.

The following will appear later this month in the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine News & Views:

Impeachment hearings? Yes!
For several years now, many grassroots efforts with the goal of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney have sprung up nationwide. The notion has always been controversial even within the peace movement and the political left. For example in 2004 peace-oriented presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich called impeachment a “sideshow” and the “politically dumbest thing, which anyone could ever and should ever do.”

Representative Kucinich in 2007 markedly changed his tune and filed a measure in the House of Representatives (known both as H. Res. 333 and H. Res. 799) that if passed would impeach Vice President Cheney for high crimes and misdemeanors. The next step in the process is to hold impeachment hearings. I wholeheartedly agree holding these hearings in Congress is an essential step if we want any chance of recovering our democratic governmental power usurped by Cheney and company since 2001.

At the urging of over 15,000 constituents who have signed impeachment petitions, Representative Mike Michaud in a letter to Chairman Conyers of the House Committee on the Judiciary wrote that, “There is no doubt that at the very least this Administration has dangerously expanded the scope of executive authority and flaunted the constitutionally defined separation of powers,” and, “Expansions and potential abuses of power by this Administration become precedents for future ones, which lead to further erosions of our constitutional rights.”

Here Representative Michaud strikes exactly the right tone, thank you. Whether or not Cheney ever can be convicted by the Senate and removed from office before 2009 is not the most important issue. Establishment of precedent is. Furthermore, the mere act of beginning hearings would throw ice on all of the illegal activities, like wiretapping, war and torture, that the Administration surely has in mind for its last year.

On February 17, 7:00 pm at the Peace Center, 170 Park Street, Bangor, there will be a President's Day showing of and discussion about the excellent Bill Moyers program featuring Republican legal expert Bruce Fein and journalist John Nichols forcefully making the case for impeachment. Now is the time to keep up the pressure.