Impeach Cheney

By Libby

I'm off to work and don't have time to blog these articles fully, so read these for yourself. Bruce Fein at Slate runs down the list of Cheney's inappropriate power grabs. Sidney Blumenthal at Salon fleshes out the details on how thoroughly Cheney has circumvented and perverted the system of checks and balances that was supposed to protect us from this kind of tyranny and Scott Horton at Harper's define tyranny and dissects the fraud of state secrets that Cheney has wielded so effectively to cover his malfeasance.

Meanwhile, in light of the Congressional response to Cheney's latest assertion of "fourth branch" powers, his office has backed down on allowing some accountability but continues to assert that his justification for avoiding accountability is up for debate.

Interesting constitutional question, my prodigious ass. More like blatant attempt to destroy constitutional protections. If our founding fathers had intended to make the Veep a second president, they would have spelled out that kind of power. The Veep was clearly intended to be a placeholder to assure continunity of leadership by the crafters of our constitution, in the event, which wasn't so unlikely 200 years ago, that the president would die prematurely. He was in effect to be the presidential understudy, not an interchangable star performer.

Just as an understudy on Broadway, doesn't get to dictate how the star interprets the leading role, nor does he get to rewrite the dialogue to please his own sensibilities, Cheney has no legal right to have stolen so much executive power as he has. In fact, his actions are impeachable and should also be indictable.

I'd suggest the Congress do more than simply threaten to defund him. It's well past time to dethrone him before he completely destroys our republic and that for which it stands.