The Downside of Impeaching Bush

Most left-wing blogs are quivering with ecstasy: Bush has admitted committing a criminal act (eavesdropping on US citizens without a warrant) and has insisted he will continue to do so. Congress is outraged. There are hopes of impeachment. But there is a downside to this.

Consider the following. Condi Lies 'R' Us has been on talk shows saying that what Bush did was perfectly legal but, when pressed for the statutes that permitted his actions came up blank. Torturer Geneneral Gonzalez has also been on talk shows saying that what Bush did was perfectly legal but, when pressed for the the statues permitting his actions came up with three different bogus legal constructions. What is interesting in all this is the dog that didn't bark in the night.

Unless I missed it, Darth Cheney has not spoken on this. Normally, when Condi has to tell lies on talk shows then Cheney does so on the same day. This time he hasn't. Maybe he doesn't think the issue is critical enough yet. Maybe he hasn't yet soaked up enough vital essence from lying in his undisclosed secret bath full of slaughtered virgins' blood to appear in daylight without turning into a pile of dust. Or maybe there is another reason.

Yes I do know that Cheney must have been at least peripherally involved in briefing Congressional intelligence committee leaders since Jay Rockefeller wrote Cheney a letter of protest. But Cheney can claim that he was only passing on orders. Cheney is, after all, the President of the Senate and is the natural go-between in this administration between the President and the Senate.

Bush is a pliable puppet - that's why he was chosen. People make much of the fact that Bush had plans to invade Iraq before he stole the 2000 election and said he wanted to be a war president because of the "political capital" it would give him. But did he think that up himself or was it fed to him? Take a look at this and you will see that Cheney and Wolfowitz had plans to invade Iraq to steal its oil since 1992 (read the whole document because it describes Cheney/Neocon plans since 1992 and has some very chilling information about a "new Pearl Harbor").

So it's pretty clear that much of Bush's thinking (such as it is) has been strongly influenced by Cheney and the Neocons constantly drumming ideas into his head. And that is the problem. Cheney is probably hoping to get away with "being out of the loop" over the eavesdropping. That would explain why he has not launched his usual snarling attacks on those who criticise it. Since it is almost certain that Bush (like Nixon) will be persuaded to resign rather than be impeached, there will be no evidence arising from an impeachment process to show that Cheney was up to his evil little neck in it.

So, threaten to impeach Bush, he resigns, and you get Cheney. The puppet replaced by the puppet master.

There have been many reports that Bush is out of control, is hitting the bottle again, and is subject to violent mood swings. There have been reports that Bush is paranoid because of all the recent leaks and now trusts only four close confidants. Were Bushs's ill-conceived speeches over the eavesdropping the result of Bush ignoring his confidants and going it alone? In which case Cheney would want to replace his out-of-control puppet. Or had Cheney become worried that the out-of-control puppet might do something really stupid (i.e., something that would drop Cheney in the shit) and managed to persuade somebody Bush still trusted to feed him the idea of giving speeches that would incriminate himself? It doesn't really matter: either way you get Cheney.

I'm not saying that Bush doesn't deserve to be impeached: the whole administration deserves to be impeached. But if you impeach Bush first you get Cheney, and that could be a far harder problem to deal with because Cheney isn't stupid (insane and evil, yes, but not stupid).

I should point out that Prison Planet has a different explanation for why Bush admitted eavesdropping just as the misnamed USA PATRIOT Act was up for renewal. According to Prison Planet, Cheney wants the renewal to fail and the eavesdropping to be stopped. A few months later there will be another "terrorist" attack on the US (as with 9-11, it will be an inside job) and it will be blamed upon the lack of the USA PATRIOT Act and freedom to eavesdrop upon US citizens. A new, improved, far more restrictive version of the Act will be rushed through Congress and it's hello dictatorship.

The Prison Planet idea is not incompatible with Cheney wanting to replace his puppet with himself. For a start, these people love plans which kill two birds with one stone: 9-11 allowed them to not only award the trans-Afghan pipeline contract back to Unocal but to have their long-wished-for war in Iraq. But if you're in the final stages of turning the US into a despotic tyranny you no longer need the puppet to be in line to become Supreme Dictator for Life because you no longer need a puppet to take the flak if things go wrong. In fact you don't want the puppet in that position because he might start to get ideas that he is actually in charge.

In this way the USA PATRIOT Act gets temporarily dropped and the puppet is replaced
by Cheney. After the "terrorist" attack the new improved act destroys all civil liberties in the US and turns it into a dictatorship with Cheney as the dictator. But Cheney's life-expectancy is short, so after Bush is impeached expect him to install a VP who will succeed him as Supreme Dictator when he steps down for health reasons. Whoever that VP is, it will be somebody who faithfully takes orders from the same shadow cabal that Cheney does and that Bush 41 did.