Freedom Rider: 35 Crimes

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

As George W. Bush's second term comes to an end, we are compelled to face the fact that "the worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition." The reminder comes from Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who last week submitted a 35-count bill of impeachment against the Texas criminal, thus giving Democratic leadership - including Barack Obama - yet another chance to show their spinelessness and sweep it off the table. "Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want."

The world has been spared from some of the evil dreams of the Bush emporium because help sometimes arrived from unexpected places. In 2007, career CIA agents blew the whistle on the bold faced lie that Iran threatened Israel with nuclear weapons when it neither threatened Israel nor had any nukes. The now famous National Intelligence Estimate report slowed down what appeared to be an inevitable rush to war. Bush may still attack Iran before leaving office, but the NIE did the right kind of damage and made further bloodshed less likely.

Last week the conservative leaning Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Bush war of terror inflicted on the men detained at Guantanamo. In a 5 to 4 decision the court ruled that prisoners have the right to challenge their detention by filing civil suits against the United States government. While CIA agents and unreliable justices make the case against Bush law breaking, most Democrats in Congress do nothing but enable the continuing criminality.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the exception. He is once again carrying the burden for the entire body by presenting articles of impeachment. His previous resolution was directed at Vice President Cheney, but now he is taking on the president directly, and on June 11, 2008 introduced 35 articles of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors, which should be investigated by Congress.

Kucinich stood on the House floor for more than four hours and delivered a laundry list of the crimes committed during the Bush administration. These include waging a war of aggression, imprisoning children, spying on American citizens, failing to respond to the hurricane Katrina disaster, violating the Voting Rights Act, obstructing investigations of the 9/11 attacks, torture, rendition, and failure to comply with subpoenas.

Kucinich is doing nothing more than obeying the oath he took to uphold the constitution of the United States. Because of Democratic party enabling, impeachment, and Kucinich himself, are seen as lost causes, laughing stocks to be ignored. The corporate media once again ignored him, in large part because his colleagues have publicly announced their refusal to enforce national and international law. While Kucinich acts as a one person police force, the House leadership has already negotiated their next capitulation.

Democrats in the House and Senate have agreed to give the Bush administration everything it wants on warrantless surveillance, including the granting of retroactive immunity to the telecoms that illegally spied on Americans. John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary committee, ought to be leading the charge for impeachment against this and other outrages. Yet so far he has only been willing to say that would act on impeachment only if Bush attacked Iran. Bush will have to commit a grand total of 36 crimes before the timid Congressman will take a stand.

Democrats have steadfastly refused to do anything to stop Bush and as a result his presidency is one of the most successful of any in modern history. His approval ratings may be in the cellar but he has gotten away with almost all of his terrible plans. The few instances when he was turned back are significant and tell us what must be done to fight for democracy. He faced serious opposition from politicians and the public when he tried to undo the Social Security safety net. The NIE report stalled an attack on Iran and may have prevented the deaths of thousands of people.

So it is all simple and tragic at the same time. The worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition. Instead Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want.

Perhaps Kucinich is putting the next president on notice and letting John McCain and Barack Obama know that there will be a price to pay for law breaking. When asked if he would endorse Obama, Kucinich raised issues that were swept under the rug during the campaign year:

". . . this election is an election that is about hope, certainly, but it's about something else, too. It's about shifting away from policies that have destroyed our economy. And I am looking forward to having a conversation with my good friend Barack Obama about what he intends to do about matters relating to NAFTA, about Social Security privatization, about whether or not he's going to be leaving troops in Iraq. I mean, these are all things that I want to know about, you know, before I give a personal endorsement."

Obama, like most Democrats, says that impeachment is off the table. "I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority." Obama made that statement one year ago, when all of the 35 crimes were well known. If he doesn't think that imprisoning children is a "grave breech," Kucinich may someday need to introduce articles of impeachment against him too.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.