[NYTr] Will Anything Convince Mass. Congressman Olver to Support Impeachment?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Kevin Zeese - Oct 15, 2007

Will Anything Convince Mass. Congressman Olver to Support Impeachment?

So Far, Even Overwhelming Majority Support Has Not

by Ralph Nader

The meeting at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts on July 5, 
2007 was anything but routine. Seated before Cong. John Olver (D-MA) 
were twenty seasoned citizens from over a dozen municipalities in this 
First Congressional District which embraces the lovely Berkshire
Hills.  

The subject: impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

The request: that Cong. Olver join the impeachment drive in Congress.

More than just opinion was being conveyed to Cong. Olver, a then 70
year old Massachusetts liberal with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These Americans voted 
overwhelmingly during formal annual town meetings in 14 towns and two 
cities in the First District endorsing resolutions to impeach the 
President and Vice President.

Presented in the form of petitions to be sent to the Congress, the 
approving citizenry cited at least four "high crimes and misdemeanors."

They included the initiation of the Iraq war based on defrauding the 
public and intentionally misleading the Congress, spying on Americans 
without judicial authorization, committing the torture of prisoners in 
violation of both federal law and the U.N. Torture Convention and the 
Geneva Convention, and stripping American citizens of their 
Constitutional rights by jailing them indefinitely without charges and 
without access to legal counsel or even an opportunity to challenge 
their imprisonment in a court of law.

Forty towns in Vermont and the State Senate had already presented their 
Congressional delegation with similar petitions.

Impeachment advocates reported the results to Cong. Olver from each
town meeting. Leverett's vote was 339-1; Great Barrington was 100-3. No
vote in any of the towns or cities was less than a two-third majority
"yes" in favor of impeachment, according to long-time activist, Atty.
Robert Feuer of Stockbridge, Mass.

With three-fourths of reports completed Cong. Olver, who voted against 
the war, raised his hand and said, "Spare me, I know full well the 
overwhelming majority of my constituency is in favor of impeachment."
He then told them he would not sign on to any impeachment resolution 
whether against Bush or against Cheney (H.Res. 333 introduced by Cong. 
Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)). He was quite adamant.

In taking this unrepresentative position, Rep. Olver's position was 
identical to that of the House Democratic leadership and many of his 
Democratic colleagues.

The Democratic Party line on impeachment is that Bush and Cheney are
the most impeachable White House duo in American history (they believe
this privately). The Democrats do not want to distract attention from
their legislative agenda, and need Republican votes for passage.
Moreover, they do not have the votes to obtain the requisite two-thirds
of the members present for conviction in the Senate.

Strangely, none of these excuses bothered Republicans when they 
impeached Bill Clinton in the House for lying under oath about sex and 
proceeded to a full trial in the Senate where they failed to get the 
required votes. Can Clinton's "high crimes and misdemeanors" begin to 
compare with this White House crime wave?

The last question to Cong. Olver was from a young veteran back from
Iraq and Afghanistan. "What could we possibly do to bring you around to
our way of thinking," he asked?

Cong. Olver's response, after several seconds of silence, was "You have 
to prove to me that impeachment will not be counterproductive."

Members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that 
they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial 
branches---namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the 
Constitution. That Oath is supposed to transcend political calculations.

Maybe the Democrats think that Bush and Cheney are such wild and crazy 
guys that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the two 
draft-dodgers to launch a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise 
generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the "war 
on terror," that would engulf the Democrats and throw them on the 
defensive for 2008.

In short, the Democrats may be viewing Bush and Cheney as being so 
defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts as to be 
unimpeachable. That is, with the White House harboring so much
political nitroglycerine, don't even try to remove it.

Such a cowardly position would make quite a precedent for future 
Presidents who want to illegally elbow out the other two branches of 
government and our Constitution.