The Impeachment Factor

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006 8:27 AM

A major Republican talking point for '06 seems to be what the Democrats might do if they take over the House.

The GOPers can't exactly run on Iraq, Social Security or, for the moment, immigration, so, in classic political fashion, they're trying to motivate their voters by painting the opposition party as a scary bunch.

The chief bogeyman these days is John Conyers, the Michigan congressman who has repeatedly called for investigations of the Bush White House that could lead to impeachment. Conyers, it turns out, would become the Judiciary chairman if the Democrats pick up 15 seats in November.

Of course, Congress had a long tradition of providing oversight of the executive branch until the Republicans essentially declared 1600 Pennsylvania off limits in the last five years. Democratic committee chairmen like John Dingell once made life difficult for Carter and Clinton. So there's nothing wrong with the Dems vowing to revive that function if they return to power.

But if voters see them as hellbent on launching one-sided, partisan impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush--let's see, is there a recent historical precedent for that?--the voters may think twice about giving them the keys to the car.

Now Conyers is defending himself, and Betsy's Page is, shall we say, skeptical:

"Now that Republicans have been raising the specter of a Chairman Conyers of the Judiciary Committee if the Democrats should take back the House, Conyers is starting to realize that it is not a great selling point for Democrats to let people know that high on their agenda is trying to impeach President Bush. So, Conyers has a column in The Washington Post denying that he would seek impeachment hearings if he became chairman of the committee.

"As Republicans have become increasingly nervous about whether they will be able to maintain control of the House in the midterm elections, they have resorted to the straw-man strategy of identifying a parade of horrors to come if Democrats gain the majority. Among these is the assertion that I, as the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, would immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush. I will not do that. I readily admit that I have been quite vigorous, if not relentless, in questioning the administration. The allegations I have raised are grave, serious, well known, and based on reliable media reports and the accounts of former administration officials.

"I guess that Representative Conyers has forgotten about this episode when he held a 'mock impeachment' hearing. . . . And, one of [the] witnesses was the sam guy, Ray McGovern, who got kudos for confronting Rumsfeld recently at a speech...

"So, some might take Conyers at his word that he isn't salivating at the idea of holding impeachment hearings, but I'm skeptical. Perhaps, he just wants to hold oodles of hearings and doesn't actually want to pull a trigger, but the general idea is the same and is enough to make me hope that Republicans voters dissatisfied with the GOP Congress don't stay home in such numbers as to let Conyers become chairman and tie up the last two years of Bush's presidency with hearing after hearing into the many non-stories that have bubbled up with the media's help in the past five years."

But what about the stories that aren't non-stories?

Tom Bevan at Real Clear Politics sees Conyers as a big fat target:

"Republicans probably wish they could get John Conyers to write an op-ed in a major paper every week from now until Election Day. Instead of having the desired effect of defusing fears that Democrats will lead the charge to impeach Bush if they win control of the House in November, Conyers' op-ed generated lots of chatter - most of it serving to remind people just how nutty, self-indulgent, and relentlessly partisan he is. . . .

"Conyers has been working to try and undo the 2004 election since the day it happened. I find it hard to believe he'll be able to resist the urge to give it another go if he gets subpoena power and the Judiciary Committee Chairmanship this November."

Conyers gets kudos, however, from the Blackwhite blog:

"Mr. Conyers is an unusual congressman, he backs-up his rhetoric with action. Conyers actually seems to take the responsibilities of his office seriously. This is the exact opposite of the the GOP led Congress. They are driven only by the use of Machiavellian gamesmanship to obtain wealth and power."

The Carpetbagger says the congressman makes sense:

"Republicans have decided that the key to rallying the party's base is to shout, as often as possible, that Democrats will hold Bush accountable if they take back Congress in November. The media seems particularly fascinated by the argument, and have reported at length on Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), ranking Dem on the House Judiciary Committee, who allegedly will lead the impeachment charge personally."

The congressman's piece in The Post "hardly sounds unreasonable. Conyers lays out a responsible, cautious approach, built around the notion of oversight and accountability. Before anyone starts drawing up articles, Conyers wants to build up some consensus through a bi-partisan process. What's not to like?"

Well, John Hawkins at Right Wing News finds plenty not to like:

"What he really means here is that they won't start the impeachment hearings the moment they get into power. Instead, they'll do some partisan investigations first -- and then trump up whatever charges they think have the best chance of succeeding.

"After all, it's not as if Conyers has been making any secret of his desire to impeach Bush."

How did General Hayden do in his Hill testimony yesterday? Here's the New York Times account:

"Gen. Michael V. Hayden sought on Thursday to distance himself from the Pentagon and its role in prewar intelligence on Iraq, in an appearance that put him on track to win swift confirmation as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"In a confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee, General Hayden appeared in the pristine navy blue uniform he has worn for 36 years as an Air Force officer.

"But he repeatedly professed his independence from the Defense Department and its leadership, saying he had been 'uncomfortable' with the work of a Pentagon intelligence office run by Douglas J. Feith, a former undersecretary of defense, which asserted in the months before the Iraq war that Iraq had established ties with operatives for Al Qaeda in the Middle East.

"General Hayden also recounted disagreements with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the Pentagon's control over a large part of America's annual intelligence budget. In characterizing one such conversation, he said, 'I think it's what diplomats would call that frank and wide-ranging exchange of views,' he said."

The Chicago Tribune focuses on the surveillance issue:

"Gen. Michael Hayden, nominated to be the next director of the CIA, told a Senate committee Thursday that he initially doubted the legality of a Bush administration program to expand domestic wiretaps on U.S. citizens after the Sept. 11 attacks, but that White House officials convinced him the program was lawful. . . .

"Hayden told the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is considering his CIA nomination, he at first told then-CIA Director George Tenet that the NSA was doing all that the law allowed on surveillance. 'Director Tenet came back to me and said, "Is there anything more you can do?"' Hayden said. 'And I said, "Not within my current authorities." And he invited me to come down and talk to the administration about what more could be done.'

"After that talk, Hayden said, he was convinced the NSA could go further. Then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft provided the NSA with a memo giving a basis for that eavesdropping authority, he said."

Wasn't Hayden supposed to be demonstrating how independent he is?

Here's a real profile in courage:

"English would be declared the 'national language' of the United States under a measure approved by the Senate today, a largely symbolic move that supporters said would promote unity and ensure assimilation by immigrants," says the Los Angeles Times .

"The Senate passed two amendments, one Democratic and one Republican. The Democratic version is more specific on protecting translation and bilingual services."

Sounds like a panderfest. Little political downside that I can see.

This may be more striking to me because I covered the controversy six years ago and saw, in person, how angry McCain was. In a way this is more of a flip-flop than McCain's embrace of Jerry Falwell.

"It's not exactly news that John McCain is perfectly happy cozying up to his old adversaries if that's what it takes for him to get to the White House," says Jason Zengerle in the New Republic, "but all the hubbub over McCain's rapprochement with Jerry Falwell seems to have overshadowed some of the other, uh, fence-mending he's been doing of late. Earlier this week, McCain let the Texas businessmen and brothers Charles and Sam Wyly host a fundraiser for him in Dallas.

"The Wyly brothers, as you may remember, funded a front-group called Republicans for Clean Air that spent $2.5 million during the 2000 Republican presidential primary savaging McCain's environmental record; given the Wylys' long friendship with the Bush family--plus the $200,000 they'd given to George W. Bush's campaigns--it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out whom Republicans for Clean Air was really working for. McCain certainly had no doubt. At the time he referred to the Wyly brothers as Bush's 'sleazy Texas buddies.'

"But that, apparently, is all water under the bridge. As McCain adviser John Weaver told The Dallas Morning News the day before the fundraiser:

" Senator McCain has made a career of always trying to look forward and do what's best for the country. That began with normalizing relations with Vietnam. Once you can do that, you can do anything.

"Who knew self-growth and forgiveness could be so rewarding?"

Pretty wiley.

Is the press letting Mike Chertoff get away with a double flip off the high-dive board? Eric Boehlert has the goods?

"Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff thinks the idea of deploying National Guard troops to secure the U.S.-Mexican border would be 'a horribly over-expensive and very difficult way to manage this problem,' mostly because the Guard 'is not trained for the mission.' Chertoff insists that 'Unless you would be prepared to leave those people in the National Guard day and night for month after month after month, you would eventually have to come to grips with the challenge in a more comprehensive way. I think there's a smarter way to do it.'

"At least that's what Chertoff told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly just six months ago on national television.

"Since Bush floated the Guard idea during his primetime address on immigration reform this week, Chertoff has caved on the issue and gone before the cameras to back the plan for Guard troops patrolling the border. (i.e. 'We have used the National Guard and the military in support of the Border Patrol for about two decades, so this is not new.') As for his previous, unequivocal statement about the whole thing being a 'horribly over-expensive and very difficult way to manage this problem'? That's been flushed down the media memory hole."

Was that USA Today account of big phone companies cooperating with the NSA wrong?

"BellSouth asked USA TODAY on Thursday to 'retract the false and unsubstantiated statements' about the company that it contends were in a May 11 story about a database of domestic calling records maintained by the National Security Agency. . . .

"Steve Anderson, a USA TODAY spokesman, said 'We did receive the letter this afternoon. We are reviewing it, and we will be responding.'"

Uh, shouldn't the editor, not the PR guy, be responding?

Josh Marshall discovers that there may be pork in the battle against immigration:

"The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: the nation's giant military contractors. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, three of the largest, are among the companies that said they would submit bids within two weeks for a multibillion-dollar federal contract to build what the administration calls a 'virtual fence' along the nation's land borders.

"Even on the downward side of the mountain, all the cronies get a taste. I guess Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrup Grumman bid so it can seem like a competitive process when Halliburton gets the contract?"

I wrote the other day how liberal bloggers were ripping Hillary as, among other things, insufficiently liberal. Check out this report from WNBC :

"Actress Susan Sarandon, a longtime liberal political activist and outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, endorsed an anti-war Democrat challenging Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's re-election bid Tuesday.

"Sarandon is backing Jonathan Tasini, a labor advocate and former president of the National Writers' Union, who has based his longshot campaign on Clinton's vote in 2002 authorizing military intervention in Iraq. . . .

"Sarandon has been a harsh critic of Clinton's vote on the war, telling a British television interviewer last month that Clinton had "crumbled under the pressure of the moment." She also told ITV1 that she wasn't enthusiastic about a Clinton presidential candidacy."