The Case for Impeachment

Have I mentioned my deep and abiding love for the essays of Lewis H. Lapham? They were (and sometimes are, now that he’s “editor emeritus”) the first thing I read in Harper’s every month, and I’ve bought a linear foot or two of books of his writings because of them. He’s more than a bit pretentious in style at times, but he’s got the mental stuff to back it up.

His latest essay to appear online is an excerpt from a big piece on The Case for Impeachment. This is not a great piece to highlight Lapham’s voice in his writing, because to a large extent he’s is smart enough to step out of the way and let the spotlight stay on his subject, in this case the dirty dealings of the Bush Administration sterling words of Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.). You can still see the well constructed prose, but you get less personality from this essay than from others–that’s appropriate for this piece though.

You see, last year on December 18th Conyers introduced a resolution to the House inviting them to form an impeachment committee, to look into the administration’s action in regards to the Iraq War. Obviously, with a Republican Congress, this wasn’t going to go anywhere, and even with the NSA scandal to boost it, it actually died more or less unreported. The kind of obvious futility of this motion motivated Lapham to ask Conyers what he was thinking. Here’s the great answer:

“To take away the excuse,” he said, “that we didn’t know.” So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, “Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?” when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that “somehow it escaped our notice” that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.

Lapham goes on to ask why Conyers didn’t wait for support to build and public opinion to change before making his move, and the answer is equally important. But even more important is the deeper strategy–the real reason for bringing this resolution: the report,

Conyers said:

“I don’t think enough people know how much damage this administration can do to their civil liberties in a very short time. What would you have me do? Grumble and complain? Make cynical jokes? Throw up my hands and say that under the circumstances nothing can be done? At least I can muster the facts, establish a record, tell the story that ought to be front-page news.”

Which turned out to be the purpose of his House Resolution 635—not a high-minded tilting at windmills but the production of a report, 182 pages, 1,022 footnotes, assembled by Conyers’s staff during the six months prior to its presentation to Congress, that describes the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description.

So, first you should read the rest of the online exceprt from Lapham’s piece on Conyers and his resolution and report. That will probably motivate you to go get the March 2006 issue of Harper’s, just to read the rest of it.

Then, you have the option of actually reading the whole damned report. “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War” is available online in both PDF and HTML forms.

I think I’m actually going to try to at least read the actual report, even if I skip the 75 pages of footnotes.