Why President Bush Should Not Be Impeached

Lately, in the Democratic zeitgeist, there has emerged the notion that, should the Democrats win control of the House / Senate in two days' time, they should being a movement to impeach the President. House Majority Leader Pelosi has received heavy criticism for her stance that impeachment is "off the table." However, she is correct. It is my firm belief that impeachment would be a mistake and almost treasonous.

That's not to say I support President Bush - I don't. He is, in my opinion, not a good President, not just for what he's done, but for what he represents, and what his party represents. And I definitely support the Democrats, and it's my fervent hope that they win the midterm elections on Tuesday.

But the fact of the matter is, impeachment would be wrong. Why? Because, according to the Constitution, impeachment is to be reserved for those accused of "high crimes and misdemeanors". And whatever you believe Bush to have done, it is almost irrational to believe that he has committed either high crimes or misdemeanors, or even, to use the words of Barbara Jordan from the Nixon impeachment, subverted the Constitution (well, at least not more so than any other politician).

The primary argument I have seen is that Bush lied to get us in to war. This may or may not be true - the fact of the matter is we really have no idea whether he did, and if he did, of what magnitude the indisrection was - and it does indeed matter, for a minor distortion is almost inevitable. Other arguments pertain to wiretapping and other vaunted violations of human rights - but for the most part these are imaginary or are, at least arguably, legal - arguably at least to the extent where the President believed he was within his rights to violate them, and probably arguable to the point of being a question that really has no clear answer. It would be immoral and entirely political to prosecute the President on this point.

Indeed, it is my contention that any attempt to impeach the President would be founded almost wholly on politics, and the ability or lack thereof of an impeaching party to bring through an impeachment attempt - whatever flimsy justifications are layered to disgusise it.
And it is precisely this sort of disregard for the laws and tradition of the Republic which must be avoided at all costs.

The Republic essentially depends on the shared delusion that the people, not force of arms, are the true source of power in the republic. When respect for the laws fades, that is when the republic dies - when personal and political power matters more than the good of the nation.
That's when the Roman Republic began to fall into empire - when they lost respect for tradition and instead gathered political and military power to themselves.

Not only would impeachment erode the structure of America and make the nation even more about political power, it would also set the stage immediately for extreme partisan clash - for an awesome (in the most original sense of the word) battle between two two antithetical viewpoints.

The Democrats gave me recently the best sign I have seen for our country's future - when Al Gore, in 2000, stepped down from contention for Presidency rather than prolong the struggle for power - when, rather than shutting down the country for his own personal reasons, he submitted so that the country could survive. I hope that they don't give me the worst as well.