Archive: Opinions

EditorialAt the beginning of this month I got a press release from 'Peace Now Ithaca' that invited people to come downtown for a rally with street puppets and balloons to celebrate US Congressman Maurice Hinchey co-sponsoring to the House bill bringing 35 articles of impeachment against George Bush.  Congress voted 251 to 166 to refer the bill to committee.  Am I missing something?  Isn't Mr. Bush leaving the White House in five months?

People who don't like our current president say that there is a moral imperative to impeach him.  I would argue that if this were about a moral imperative they would have done it at least four years ago.  Doing it now reads more like a political imperative at a time when even the candidate of the party the President belongs to traditionally distances him or herself from that administration's policies.  To me the issue is money.  I don't mind spending money on moral imperatives.  But spending tax dollars on political ones really ticks me off!

The New York Times estimated in 1999 that Congress paid over $1.2 million (in 1999 dollars) to it's top impeachment investigators when it chose to impeach President Clinton.  But that figure doesn't include the portion of members of Congress's salaries, nor that of their aides, that accounted for time spent on the impeachment.  The 2008 salary for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $169,300 per year.  Multiply that by 435 congressmen and you get $73,645,500.  Add their staff's salaries, plus building and other costs to that and then divide by the amount of time spent on impeachment and you have a wholloping big price tag.

I don't doubt the earnestness of those who disagree with the current administration, but I am highly suspicious of the timing when it comes to partisan politics.  And while it is clearly patriotic to challenge provably unlawful acts by a federal leader, I say it is distinctly unpatriotic to spend taxpayers' dollars, especially when people are struggling to pay their bills from month to month, for political reasons.

Hinchey does not represent Lansing, but he's still spending our money.  And our own representative, Michael Arcuri, voted 'aye' on the bill.  Last year Arcuri voted against impeaching Vice President Cheney.  At that time he said impeachment would bring the business of government to a halt.  Given that no matter what you think of President Bush, he will be out of office in five months, I don't see how bringing the country to a halt benefits anyone now.

I think most average Americans agreed that breaking and entering for the purpose of influencing an election was a pretty direct attack on our democracy, and even President Nixon realized that sticking around to see if the Senate convicted him for it was probably a bad idea.  But I think most average Americans thought that the Clinton/Lewinsky episode, while distasteful, disrespectful to the office Clinton held not to mention to his wife and family, was not a high crime, nor was lying about it.  It was a very expensive political gambit propigated by some Republicans for political gain.  They hated Clinton and that was that. 

And we all paid for it.  Not just in money, but with our president distracted some important things didn't get done.  Now the same thing is happening, but it's the Democrats' turn.

I guess Nixon made impeachment popular.  That's too bad.  Nixon should have been impeached.  The evidence was there and he did us all a favor by resigning.  But impeachment is a slippery thing.  The U.S. Constitution says, 'The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'  What it doesn't define is how high 'high' is.  And because law is interpreted, not precisely defined, the highness of high is as much a political judgement as a legal one.
 
People joke about 'earmarks,' local projects that are added onto bills to benefit certain congressional or senatorial districts.  Millions of dollars to study why people don't like to get sick, that sort of thing.  But it is no joke.  It bloats government, and gives lots of money from people who can't afford it to people who can.  In my opinion this new impeachment bill, for the timing alone, is as frivolous as those earmarks.

To quote the 1976 movie 'Network,' I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!'  Except that I am going to take it any more because the people I entrust my life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness to think it's OK to spend my money on stuff that doesn't matter to me, or ultimately to my country.

I have purposefully avoided mentioning how I feel about Mr. Clinton or Mr. Bush.  What I can't abide is these attack dog politicians on both sides of the aisle who think it's OK to not work on making our country stronger while they play politics and spend my money.  It is the highly suspect timing of this bill that I am calling into question, and the flagrant disregard for tax dollars that I object to. 

Heck, I haven't even mentioned (until now) how silly I think street puppets are when you are dealing with something as dead serious as removing a sitting president.  And I really love silly puppets.  You just have to know when not to be silly, puppet-wise and politics-wise.

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