Israel Invades Lebanon, Bush Cheers

Responding to the abduction of 2 soldiers and other terrorist activity, Israel invaded Lebanon this week. Despite the enormous number of civilian casualties, the Bush administration has repeatedly issued statements of support for Israel's campaign.

None of this is surprising. From the Bush perspective, Israel is doing what every country has a right to do - bomb terrorists into oblivion, even if a large number of innocent civilians are killed in the process.

Secretary of State Rice should have been over there on day one trying to shut this thing down. Unfortunately, she and her boss share the belief that peace can only be attained through violence. Even Bush the First approached the Middle East as a broker of peace.

For a thoughtful writeup about the situation in Lebanon, check out this opinion piece by Michael Young in the NYT.

Local Efforts to Initiate Impeachment Proceedings Against Bush and Cheney

I love reading the "headlines" on GOP.com. The posting on June 6, "The REAL Dem Agenda: Impeachment," concerns all of the local - but nationwide - initiatives for impeachment that have met with success.

And, classically, the RNC's point is that seeking impeachment is a really radical thing to do, and that only the "liberal elites" of the "ultra left" support such a shocking thing. All of this gets back to the GOP talking point about "loony liberals." In other words, you must be CRAZY to think about impeaching the president.

As mentioned on www.bushscrewedamerica.com, we point out that impeachment isn't at all as radical as the Republican leadership would have you believe.

...this is another attempt to make the impeachment movement sound like something only radicals could get behind—which is ridiculous. Public support for impeachment has been growing for quite some time. As far back as October 2005 a poll found that 50% of Americans agreed with the statement, "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him." (AfterDowningStreet.org commissioned the poll, which was conducted by the non-partisan group Ipsos Public Affairs.) In mid-March 2006, another poll by the American Research Group showed that 48% of voters polled favored Sen. Feingold’s plan for censuring Bush. Notably, so did 29% of Republican voters who were polled. From that same poll, 43% of voters favored impeachment – 18% of Republicans included. In May 2006, a non-scientific poll on MSNBC showed that 84% of respondents favor impeachment based on the illegal wiretapping, and the misinformation leading up to the Iraq invasion.

In other words, the impeachment movement is not relegated to the fringes of society after all.

And why do the Republicans want to you to think it's such a crazy idea? Because they're complicit in the illegal activities of the administration. If Bush and Cheney are impeached and convicted of their crimes, guess who's next in line.

Pelosi Rules Out Impeachment

In an effort to steal a rallying point from Republicans,* Nancy Pelosi has indicated that she will not support the impeachment movement. As quoted in the Washington Post article, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said, "impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it."

While this does seem to take some of the wind out of our sails, it also reinforces our opinions about the current Democratic leadership. They have given up their role as champions of fairness and equality for the role of the whiny opposition. Their strategy is itself only based on the strategy of the Republicans. You have to give the Republicans credit for what they've done. They organized and executed a long-term campaign to shift the entire national dialogue to the right. Now the Dems are sitting around with wide eyes just shouting to be heard.

One of my classes in college used a textbook (can't remember which) that showed the timeline of political parties on our great country. Over the history of politics in the US, political parties have come and go when they no longer speak for a large enough consituency. As I've watched the Democrats of today hem and haw, that timeline has come up more and more in my mind. Are we seeing the final days of the Democratic party? Have they shifted so far to the right in the last 15 years that they can no longer represent the environment, fairness and integrity? Or is it just a low-spot?

*How ironic it is that efforts to impeach Bush, guilty of so many "high crimes and misdemeanors," should become a rallying cry for Republicans. It wasn't that long ago that the members of the Republican Revolution successfully impeached Clinton for such weighty offenses as lying about his triste in the Oval Office.

Welcome to the BushSCREWEDAmerica.com blog!

Here we'll post our thoughts as necessary regarding the evolution of the impeachment movement, developments in foreign or domestic affairs, etc.

Please note, comments will be moderated. Opposing views will be posted, so long as they're respectful and coherent. We promise to strive for the same!

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