Didn't Watergate teach us anything...aka...Why George W. Bush should be impeached

There used to be a time in American politics when a president that behaves badly and engages in clearly unethical behavior was punished for it. Watergate saw Nixon resign rather than be kicked out. Iran-Contra saw unique compassion from the Democrats as they decided to spare the country another Presidential scandal and instead were satisfied with a public inquiry and punishment for Jolly Ollie North. Things really got turned around in the 90's, though, when the GOP Hack-a-Prez tactic finally nailed Clinton on Lewinsky - an irrelevant and trivial bit of information that never should have become public.

I'll be happy to go into more depth later if necessary - but the short and sweet is, the GOP responded to Clinton's win in 92 with a series of investigations and special prosecutors into suspicions of wrongdoing by the Clintons when they were back in Arkansas. The root of these suspicions was a little private investigation firm down in Arkansas that sold their services to the GOP ostensibly to dig up dirt on the Clintons. Instead of digging up dirt, they just invented dirt and sold it to the highest bidder. They had a bone to pick with Clinton because of local politics, the national GOP just used that vehicle to attack the Prez. Anyway, after about a hundred million dollars of expenditures, two independent prosecutors, and thousands hours of testimony, Starr and crew came up with nothing on Billy and Hilly. It wasn't until that troll of a woman from the DOD illegally taped Lewinsky confessing to pleasuring the Prez that Starr finally got something on the Prez. Yeah, he shouldn't have lied about it (although his defense of why it wasn't a lie is pure Clintonian genius), but he shouldn't have been asked about it either. That entire era represents one of the darkest days of American politics of the 20th century.

Now, however, it's as if a CLEAR scandal, with a President lying to start an illegal war is going to be continually swept under the carpet. Here are some facts:

On May 1st of this year, The Times of London released a confidential British memo that were meeting notes from a briefing of top government officials and Tony Blair after Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon returned from a July 2002 meeting with US administration officials. The subject was Iraq and the admin at the time was already targeting Iraq leading one British official to say, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided."

The gearup for the war was specifically planned and timed: "the United States had not finalized a timeline, but that it would likely begin "30 days before the U.S. congressional elections," culminating with the actual attack in January 2003."

In fact, this had already been roughly agreed to by Blair and Bush in April of 2002: "When the prime minister discussed Iraq with President Bush at Crawford in April," states the paper, "he said that the UK would support military action to bring about regime change." (Times of London, May 1, 05, "Blair Planned Iraq War from the Start")

But perhaps the most stunning, shocking, and frightening aspect of the memo is this little tidbit:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." (Emphasis added.)

This is an incredible revelation because as The Times of London clearly states, "the primary impetus to action over Iraq was not the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction' as Blair later told the country 'but the desire to overthrow Saddam. There was little talk of WMD at all."

It was several weeks after this memo was written that Blair and Bush spun Iraq as an "immanent threat to its neighbors" something that was a clear lie. Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary of the UK, even went as far to say during the meeting that, "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

So let me get this straight, a President lies about getting a BJ in the Oval Office and he gets impeached for it. The very next President lies about a policy issue - he tells the US public and the world that Iraq is a threat to world peace, is developing WMD, and had a role in 9/11 - all clearly false, something that there is documentation to support, something that resulted in thousands of American casualties, something that cost hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars, something that completely eviscerated all of the post-9/11 goodwill that the world showered on the US, and there's not even an investigation, not to mention an impeachment proceeding?

Let me just repeat a quote from above one more time: "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Even beyond that, however, where is the US media? If you do a google news search on this issue you'll find a CNN International article, some "alternative media", an LA Times article, and not much else. This is a HUGE story, or should be. John Conyers, D-MI, has written a letter to the admin and attached 89 signatures from Congressional Democrats asking for an explanation. The letter was sent a week ago. Where is the Washington Post, New York Times, etc? Did I just miss the coverage or is the media going to collectively lie down in the face of "this is just old news y'all. Come on down to my ranch and we'll have a barbecue and y'all feel better right quick. Yee haw!" I guess the media would rather report on runaway Georgia brides. For shame.