Republicans we should listen to

On the Thom Hartmann show this morning one of the guests was Republican Paul Craig Roberts. Dr Roberts has been trying to warn us about the tyrannical nature of the Bush Cheney cabal for several years and really had his tinfoil hat on this morning. He is convinced that Cheney will "stage" a terrorist attack before the November elections in an attempt to avoid a massive Republican defeat. He agrees with Hartmann's guest the day before, Bruce Fein, a the Republican that authored the Clinton articles of impeachment. Mr Fein repeated some of what he said his Slate article a few weeks ago.
Impeach Cheney
The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped.

Under Dick Cheney, the office of the vice president has been transformed from a tiny acorn into an unprecedented giant oak. In grasping and exercising presidential powers, Cheney has dulled political accountability and concocted theories for evading the law and Constitution that would have embarrassed King George III. The most recent invention we know of is the vice president's insistence that an executive order governing the handling of classified information in the executive branch does not reach his office because he also serves as president of the Senate. In other words, the vice president is a unique legislative-executive creature standing above and beyond the Constitution. The House judiciary committee should commence an impeachment inquiry. As Alexander Hamilton advised in the Federalist Papers, an impeachable offense is a political crime against the nation. Cheney's multiple crimes against the Constitution clearly qualify.

While the Democratic leadership continues to fear that impeachment hearings would bring on a "Constitutional Crisis" Mr Fein believes, as do many of us, that we are in a constitutional crisis that can only be ended by impeachment. Mr Fein concludes with this:

Yet without making a written transmittal to Congress, President Bush has ceded vast domains of his powers to Vice President Cheney by mutual understanding that circumvents the 25th Amendment. This constitutional provision assures that the public and Congress know who is exercising the powers of the presidency and who should be held responsible for successes or failures. The Bush-Cheney dispensation blurs political accountability by continually hiding the real decision-maker under presidential skirts. The Washington Post has thoroughly documented the vice president's dominance in a four-part series running this week. It is quite a read.

In the end, President Bush regularly is unable to explain or defend the policies of his own administration, and that is because the heavy intellectual labor has been performed in the office of the vice president. Cheney is impeachable for his overweening power and his sneering contempt of the Constitution and the rule of law.

On Hartmann's show this morning Dr Roberts made it clear that he believes that Dick Cheney is capable of anything to consolidate and keep his own power and push his own agenda. That includes attacking his own country. For that reason Dr Roberts agrees with Fein that Cheney must be impeached at once.