[R-G] Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment

[Anthony Fenton]

Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080612_taking_back_the_republic/
Posted on Jun 11, 2008
Kucinich
[AP photo / Stephan Savoia
Fightin’ words: Rep. Dennis Kucinich brandishes his pocket  
Constitution on the campaign trail in New Hampshire last January.]

By Gore Vidal

On June 9, 2008, a counterrevolution began on the floor of the House  
of Representatives against the gas and oil crooks who had seized  
control of the federal government. This counterrevolution began in the  
exact place which had slumbered during the all-out assault on our  
liberties and the Constitution itself.

I wish to draw the attention of the blog world to Rep. Dennis  
Kucinich’s articles of impeachment presented to the House in order  
that two faithless public servants be removed from office for crimes  
against the American people. As I listened to Rep. Kucinich invoke the  
great engine of impeachment—he listed some 35 crimes by these two  
faithless officials—we heard, like great bells tolling, the voice of  
the Constitution itself speak out ringingly against those who had  
tried to destroy it.

Although this is the most important motion made in Congress in the  
21st century, it was also the most significant plea for a restoration  
of the republic, which had been swept to one side by the mad antics of  
a president bent on great crime. And as I listened with awe to  
Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or  
cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly  
respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice  
president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by  
Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment.

But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and  
too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the  
welfare of this republic, and so I turned, as I often do, to the  
foreign press for a clear report of what has been going on in  
Congress. We all know how the self-described “war hero,” Mr. John  
McCain, likes to snigger at France, while the notion that he is a hero  
of any kind is what we should be sniggering at. It is Le Monde, a  
French newspaper, that told a story the next day hardly touched by The  
New York Times or The Washington Post or The Wall Street Journal or,  
in fact, any other major American media outlet.

As for TV? Well, there wasn’t much—you see, we dare not be divisive  
because it upsets our masters who know that this is a perfect country,  
and the fact that so many in it don’t like it means that they have  
been terribly spoiled by the greatest health service on Earth, the  
greatest justice system, the greatest number of occupied prisons—two  
and a half million Americans are prisoners—what a great tribute to our  
penal passions!

Naturally, I do not want to sound hard, but let me point out that even  
a banana Republican would be distressed to discover how much of our  
nation’s treasury has been siphoned off by our vice president in the  
interest of his Cosa Nostra company, Halliburton, the lawless gang of  
mercenaries set loose by this administration in the Middle East.

But there it was on the first page of Le Monde. The House of  
Representatives, which was intended to be the democratic chamber, at  
last was alert to its function, and the bravest of its members set in  
motion the articles of impeachment of the most dangerous president in  
our history. Rep Kucinich listed some 30-odd articles describing  
impeachable offenses committed by the president and vice president,  
neither of whom had ever been the clear choice of our sleeping polity  
for any office.

Some months ago, Kucinich had made the case against Dick Cheney. Now  
he had the principal malefactor in his view under the title “Articles  
of Impeachment for President George W. Bush”! “Resolved, that  
President George W. Bush be impeached for high crimes and  
misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be  
exhibited to the United States Senate.” The purpose of the resolve is  
that he be duly tried by the Senate, and if found guilty, be removed  
from office. At this point, Rep. Kucinich presented his 35 articles  
detailing various high crimes and misdemeanors for which removal from  
office was demanded by the framers of the Constitution.

Update: On Wednesday, the House voted by 251 to 166 to send Rep.  
Kucinich’s articles of impeachment to a committee which probably won’t  
get to the matter before Bush leaves office, a strategy that is “often  
used to kill legislation,” as the Associated Press noted later that  
day.