Impeachment Legalisms

Inspired by Ralph Nader, several progressive websites are now debating whether President Bush should be impeached, a debate slightly less realistic than progressive debates over whether, say, Hilary Clinton would make a better Chief Justice than Bill Clinton. The point that should be emphasized over and over again is that President Bush and too many members of his administration use repeated professions of faith to cover up a basically amoral conception of politics. The administration has repeatedly misled the American people on what it knew about Iraq, before and after the invasion. The administration is engaging in indiscriminate and religious offensive torture, violating both domestic and international law with impunity and arrogance. Whether these practices constitute impeachable offenses is irrelevant in the present political climate. The greater challenge is convincing Americans that we have an amoral administration that unless it is replaced as soon as possible will do irreparable damage to America's reputation abroad, the only lasting weapon the United States can wield in the war against terrorism.