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