March 18, 2006

The recommendations continue regarding investigating grounds for impeaching George W. Bush as well as censure. Periodically we also read and hear about petition efforts to attack Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld.

The time for such actions has long passed. The term "arrogance of power" that was reiterated so often in analyzing the actions of President Richard M. Nixon three decades ago has been carried to new meaning through the ruthless exercise of power by an unelected ruling Junta led by Dick Cheney.

Despite the Cheney-Bush Junta's disdain for France, the comment that unlike any other epitomizes its rule was attributed to France's King Louis XIV of "L'etat, c'est moi." This translates to "I am the state," directly applicable to a scorched earth policy by Cheney-Bush in which the United States Constitution has, according to some, been trashed with impunity.

The Constitution has been as much a victim of abandonment as have the poor and middle class socioeconomic elements in the Cheney-Bush economic experience. When Bush seeks to treat war launching in Iraq as no more than a judgment error on weapons of mass destruction that yielded positive results in the end, he is engaging in insidious distortion.

The record is clear. From the time they entered office the Cheney-Bush tandem, aided and abetted by the Project for the New American Century's leading forces such as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol, trained a collective focus on Iraq and toppling the neocons' former ally of Reagan Administration days, Saddam Hussein, from power.

While the stated focus was ultimately to bring democracy to Iraq, in reality a ruling corporate Junta led by the former company Dick Cheney headed before returning to Washington in his Junta leadership role, Halliburton, along with Bechtel and Monsanto took effective control.

The cost overruns have been disgraceful while an Uncle Scrooge mentality prevailed when it came to the safety of U.S. forces, as exemplified by their family members needing to resort to the Internet source of E-Bay to acquire body armor.

Meanwhile civil liberties were trampled at home under the guise of applied vigilance against terrorist threats while our ports of entry became increasingly vulnerable. The Cheney-Bush hallmark of concrete action falling perilously short of boisterous rhetoric was in evidence.

As for those who were captured, in defining them as "enemy combatants" the Junta sought to exempt them from the standards of conduct inherent in the Geneva Codes, to which we were a signatory, as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay became synonymous with the same kind of cold blooded torture associated with the bloodiest of totalitarian regimes.

There will be no Constitution in effect as long as the current regime remains in power. There need not be any declaration confirming this tragic reality. Actions speak louder than words and the conduct of the ruling Junta makes it abundantly clear that constitutional democracy is dead and buried for the duration.

Many of the same prophets of reality who are currently being denounced for advocating impeachment were earlier ridiculed for a 2004 prophecy. The earlier statement in question was that the Cheney-Rove strategy team would not accept a presidential election defeat.

Some thought that this prophecy, if accurate, would lead to a declaration of martial law following a Bush electoral loss after a manufactured or imminently posed "terrorist threat." A less risky and more practical response was more feasible.

With Walden O'Dell and Diebold Incorporated becoming an increasingly important factor in the election firmament and Republicans holding power in so many key precincts and offices in battleground states, as exemplified by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in Ohio, no martial law declaration was needed, only a tweaking of election results.

The exit poll results that Bush supporter Dick Morris called well nigh infallible gave Kerry a 3 percent edge while the official results showed the reverse for a 6-point swing.

Combine the foregoing factors and, like it or not, the chilling result is at least a de facto dictatorship. The debating point, deemed ultimately academic by circumstances, is whether such a dictatorship is de facto or existing on its face.

Constitutional government has been demolished. The only way to retrieve it is through removing from office the destroyers. As Benjamin Franklin said when asked, at the close of the Constitutional Convention, what kind of government the new nation possessed, "A Republic if you can keep it."

That Republic has vanished. Shouldn't we seek to reclaim it?