To: Rep. Nancy Pelosi
From: Bob Fertik
Re: How to Discuss Impeachment

As the Democratic Leader in the House, you are the chief spokesperson on whether Democrats will impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Of course, you know better than anyone that Bush and Cheney have committed innumerable impeachable offenses. But if you say that out loud, the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy will promote you to Conservative Witch #1, which you would rather leave in Hillary's hands.

On the other hand, if you say impeachment will never happen, the progressive blogosphere will promote you to Democratic Traitor #1, which you would rather leave in Lieberman's hands.

So you are carefully dancing around the issue. When Tim Russert grilled you, you did a marvelous four-step:

• "I said we'd be having hearings on the war, we'd have hearings. But I don't see us going to a place of impeachment."
• "Investigation does not equate to impeachment. Investigation is the requirement of Congress. It is about checks and balances."
• "John Conyers is an enthusiastic advocate. I am the leader. Our caucus will decide where we go."

• "You never know where the facts take you ... but that is not what we are about. We will have subpoena power and that's why the Republicans are so afraid that we will be able to show the public how they arrived at a prescription drug bill that is born of corruption. The cost of corruption is huge to the consumer, whether it is low income seniors paying more at the pharmacy, whether it is all American consumers paying more at the pump or home heating oil. How did we get to this place? That is worthy of scrutiny."

This was a great performance, because you didn't energize the Republican base and you didn't antagonize the Democratic base.

Unfortunately, your answers did not put the impeachment question to rest. And they will never be put to rest as long as Bush and Cheney continue to commit impeachable crimes every single day - and as long as a majority of Americans support impeachment for one or more of these crimes.

So next time a TV pundit grills you about impeachment, try some of these answers:

• Well Tim, should a President be able to lie to Congress and the American people to start a war that takes the lives of 2,400 of our bravest sons and daughters?
• Well Tim, should a President be able to wiretap thousands or millions of law-abiding American citizens without a warrant?
• Well Tim, should a President be able to defy U.S. and international law by authorizing torture and even murder of prisoners?
• Well Tim, should a President be able to lock away an American citizen without charges or access to a lawyer forever?
• Well Tim, should a President be able to nullify 750 laws through signing statements?

Answers like these will accomplish a multiplicity of goals:

• They will open the eyes of millions of Americans who are completely unaware of these crimes because they get all their news from TV, especially FOX
• They will show Americans that you are smart as a whip - and tough as nails
• They will make rightwingers' heads explode
• They will make the pundit's head explode - and guarantee that no pundit will ask you about impeachment ever again

Give it a try! This memo comes with a money-back guarantee :)

Update 1: It's clear that the GOP and the Corporate Media are trying to turn John Conyers into the Willy Horton of 2006. John Conyers fired back at the Huffington Post:

It's not every day a Congressman from Detroit has his name mentioned on, not one, but two Sunday morning news shows.

First, on ABC's This Week, I was taken to task by none other than the soon-to-be-ex-Congressman Tom DeLay. Democrats should not be allowed to take back the House, he said. Why? Because, he claimed, "John Conyers will be the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats take over.

John Conyers is to the left of your next guest, Howard Dean and he's already participated in mock impeachment hearings." Funny, I don't remember that hearing. I did organize a Democratic forum on the Downing Street Minutes, but that was not about impeachment, and the Republicans wouldn't even let us have a room for it.

Next, none other than Tim Russert launched an attack. While interviewing my Leader, Nancy Pelosi, Russert intoned ominously "The chair of the Judiciary cmte would be someone named John Conyers, I went to his website and this is what was on his website." He then showed the headline of my website where I call for the creation of a Sam Ervin-style bipartisan Committee, equally composed of Democrats and Republicans, to investigate pre-war manipulation of intelligence and other matters and, if warranted, to make recommendations to the Judiciary Committee on possible grounds for impeachment.

"That's the man who would be Chairman of the Judiciary Committee," Russert ominously declared. He then asked if "John Conyers should take down his website."

Perhaps Mr. Russert has forgotten, but I have been a Chairman before. For five years, from 1989 to 1994, I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, now called the Government Reform Committee. I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse.

That was back when Congress did something called "oversight." You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't have a prescription drug plan written by the pharmaceutical companies, that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices with the same drug companies, and that no one really understands.

Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we would know the extent to which our own government is spying on our phone calls, emails and other communications, contrary to the law of the land.

Oversight should not be a partisan undertaking. As we saw in the late 90's, when oversight is used out of anger or spite, or to gain partisan advantage, the American people express their strong disapproval.

Personally, I have had enough partisanship for the last six years to last a lifetime and I think we need to bring the American people back together.

But we also need to serve their interests. Congressional oversight is part of that. It is a check and balance, designed to protect the American people from too much power being concentrated in too few hands.

If I become a Chairman again, I intend to push for oversight of this Administration. Our Constitutional system of government requires no less.

Update 2: David Swanson sees a GOP-engineered media conspiracy to demonize Conyers:

For the past two weeks, the RNC has been focusing on John Conyers and claiming that he will work to impeach Bush as Chair of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats take back the House. I hope he will, and that he will be able to drag the rest of the Democrats along with him, kicking and screaming. But that's not where Conyers is now. Trust me. We've been trying to push him to that position for 12 months.

Impeachment of Bush and Cheney, by the way, is not revenge for Clinton's impeachment. It is the left-leaning Democrats who are willing to push for Bush and Cheney impeachments, and we on the left never could stand Clinton. The dead armadillos (those in the middle of the road) are the ones who liked Clinton, and they're hiding from impeachment as if it really were an RNC weapon.

On Thursday, the Dallas Morning News wrote a story about how Republicans can do well in this year's elections. The "reporter" suggested focusing on the fact that Conyers would chair the Judiciary Committee and push impeachment.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press have been phoning around, working on similar stories, following a recent televised encounter between Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and talking rear-end Tim Russert. Russert rudely questioned Pelosi about impeachment and suggested that Rep. Conyers should take down his website.

Over on the Disney Channel, er, I mean ABC News, Tom Delay began his recent blather by telling George Stephanopoulos that the Dems should not be allowed to retake the House because of… guess who? John Conyers.

Is this beginning to look like an oddly coordinated effort for our system of free and competitive media outlets dedicated to truth and democratic enlightenment?

Then there are the stories reporters keep dragging up about Conyers' staffer years ago babysitting his kids. The Republican Party is throwing an orgy in the Watergate for a $40 billion spy agency that couldn't find its ass with a map and two hands, and this is where our intrepid reporters are digging? Why?

Why this bombardment of efforts to paint the longest-serving African-American in Congress as a fringe extremist, whereas in reality he is balancing carefully between the demands of voters and the spinelessness of his party's leadership?

Update 3: Jane Hamsher thinks the media bigfoots who are attacking impeachment are afraid of having their own pre-war crimes exposed:

The next time Russert and Matthews start quaking in their shoes at the thought of Democrats with subpoena power, I think it’s time to remember that it’s not their beloved Republicans they fear for, and given their ecstatic participation in the Cliniton hunt it sure isn’t the public.  Could it be their own sorry asses they fear being exposed?  Is that why they’re working overtime to spread GOP narratives and attempting  to strike fear in the hearts of their viewers at the specter of impeachment? 

You know, I think it just might be.

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