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If a national movement calling for the
impeachment of the President is rapidly emerging and the corporate
media are not covering it, is there really a national movement
for the impeachment of the President?
Impeachment advocates are widely
mobilizing in the U.S. Over 1,000 letters to the editors of major
newspapers have been printed in the past six months asking for
impeachment. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette letter writer George Matus
says, "I am still enraged over unasked questions about exit
polls, touch-screen voting, Iraq, the cost of the new Medicarewho
formulated our energy policy, Jack Abramoff, the Downing Street
Memos, and impeachment." David Anderson in McMinnville,
Oregon pens to the Oregonian, "Where are the members of
our congressional delegation now in demanding the current president's
actions be investigated to see if impeachment or censure are
appropriate actions?" William Dwyer's letter in the Charleston
Gazette says, "Congress will never have the courage to start
the impeachment process without a groundswell of outrage from
the people."
City councils, boards of supervisors,
and local and state level Democrat central committees have voted
for impeachment. Arcata, California voted for impeachment on
January 6. The City and County of San Francisco, voted Yes on
February 28. The Sonoma County Democrat Central Committee (CA)
voted for Impeachment on March 16. The townships of Newfane,
Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney in Vermont all voted
for impeachment the first week of March. The New Mexico State
Democrat party convention rallied on March 18 for the "impeachment
of George Bush and his lawful removal from office." The
national Green Party called for impeachment on January 3. Op-ed
writers at the St. Petersburg Times, Newsday, Yale Daily News,
Barrons, Detroit Free Press, and the Boston Globe have called
for impeachment. The Nation (1/30/06) and Harpers (3/06) magazines
published cover articles calling for impeachment. Garrison Keillor,
and Richard Dreyfuss both have come out for impeachment. As of
March 16, thirty-two US House of Representatives have signed
on as co-sponsors to House Resolution 635, which would create
a Select Committee to look into the grounds for recommending
President Bush's impeachment.
Polls show that nearly a majority
of Americans favor impeachment. In October of 2005, Public Affairs
Research found that 50% of Americans said that President Bush
should be impeached if he lied about the war in Iraq. A Zogby
International poll from early November 2005 found that 53% of
Americans say, "If President Bush did not tell the truth
about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should
consider holding him accountable through impeachment." A
March 16, 2006 poll by American Research Group showed that 42%
of Americans favored impeaching Bush.
Despite all this advocacy and
sentiment for impeachment, corporate media have yet to cover
this emerging mass movement. The Bangor Daily News simply
reported on March 17 that former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark
has set up the website Votetoimpeach.org and that other groups
are using the internet to push impeachment. The Wall Street
Journal, on March 16, editorialized about how it is just
"the loony left" seeking impeachment, but perhaps some
Democrats in Congress will join in feeding on the "bile
of the censure/impeachment brigades."
The corporate media is ignoring
the broadening call for impeachment - wishing perhaps it will
just go away. Television news and talk shows have mentioned impeachment
over 100 times in the past 30 days, mostly however in the context
of Senator Russ Feingold's censure bill and the lack of broad
Democrat support for censure or impeachment. Nothing on television
news gives the impression that millions of Americans are calling
for the impeachment of Bush and his cohorts.
The Bush Administration lied
about Iraq, illegally spied on US citizens, and continues war
crimes in the Middle East. Despite corporate media's inability
to hear the demands for impeachment, the groundswell of outrage
continues to expand.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma
State University and Director of Project Censored a media research
organization. He is co-editor with Dennis Loo from Cal Poly Pomona
of the The Case for Impeachment of Bush and Cheney scheduled
for release this summer by Seven Stories Press.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
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