Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

I would like to congratulate you on your new position as Speaker of the House and know that you will serve it well.

You took the gavel in the spirit of “partnership, not partisanship”, and although your election for Speaker was secured, not one Republican representative voted in your favor. Not one of them offered an olive branch to you, in the spirit of partnership. I am not naïve enough to understand that the vote was purely political, but I thought it was still worth noting.

But the reason I am writing to you is of another matter.

In the lead up to the elections of November, I was receiving email after email from organization after organization asking for support of the Democratic Party in the upcoming elections, that the status quo was unacceptable, that “staying the course” was not an option for our current government as well as in Iraq. I received mailings from Rep. John Conyers regarding articles of impeachment drafted against President Bush in light of the faulty intelligence used to mislead the public, as well as misleading members of Congress, that Iraq posed a credible threat to the United States.

Once the war began, President Bush would roll out seemingly endless reasons for our pre-emptive strike and invasion of Iraq to suit his needs. We now know that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. We now know that there was no attempt to buy yellowcake from Niger. We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction despite fears of not wanting “the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” We now know that the aluminum tubes seen in satellite pictures were not intended for missiles to resume a nuclear weapons program. We know all of this. We know that this administration has used the fear of the American people to their advantage in invoking September 11th over and over again.

Yet after all of this, less than 24 hours after the Democratic Party regained control of the House and Senate in an incredible victory that echoed the voice of the people for change, you said, “Impeachment is off the table.”

When President Clinton was impeached by Congress, led by a Republican majority, we all heard the same thing. It wasn’t what he did that was offensive; it was because he broke the law by perjuring himself. The chants of “Rule of law!” were painfully heard. And President Clinton was impeached by nine votes in the House.

After six years of our system of checks and balances being kicked aside, I say to you Speaker Pelosi, that impeachment is not a choice. It is a Constitutional duty. Pursuing articles of impeachment is not about revenge or “getting even.” It is about restoring the rule of law. It is about accountability, and accountability transcends politics.

In his long awaited speech to the nation last night regarding his plans for a “New Way Forward” in Iraq, President Bush gave us some of the same rhetoric that we have wearily heard again and again. After weeks of consultation, with military commanders in the field, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and countless others, including the American people who oppose a “surge” of troops in Iraq, and all the while our men and women in uniform continued to die day after day, the President once again disregarded what the experts had to say and decided to do what we all knew he was planning on doing all along.

I applaud your stance in opposing escalation of the war, and of Senator Kennedy’s proposed legislation of Congressional approval for additional funds and additional troops to be deployed to Iraq. But there was something in the President’s speech last evening that frankly scared me:

“Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”

Is this to mean that instead of trying to contain the war to Iraq, will we possibly be trying to fight on two or three fronts and stretch our military beyond its limits? This has to be stopped in its tracks before it begins. It is confirmation that the President is detached from the reality of what is happening in the region. The only thing that will continue to “embolden our enemies” is the continued deployment of US troops and our consistent occupation of Iraq.

In November, the pendulum swung to the Democratic side of Congress. As history has shown, it is only a matter of time before it swings back. I hope that when the high crimes and misdemeanors of this administration come to light after all the hearings and investigations, that you, as Speaker of the House, will take steps toward the appropriate actions demanded by the Constitution of the United States; that you will begin criminal proceedings on those responsible for their actions, and those responsible for the United States losing face on the world stage. There is much to repair to make this country great again. There is much to repair to gain the trust of our allies around the world again.

In the past six years under the Bush Administration, Patriot Acts I and II have passed that have eroded Constitutional rights; the Iraq war continues to inflict death and destruction on a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001; the response to Hurricane Katrina was an incredible debacle that continues to leave thousands homeless in Louisiana, as well as Mississippi and Alabama; the leak of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative for political gain endangered her life as well as those who worked with her in the field, and caused us to lose vital intelligence sources in that region; the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was ignored to conduct illegal wiretapping without a warrant; and most recently President Bush’s latest signing statement of December 20, 2006, attached to a postal reform bill, claims federal officials can open US Mail without a warrant, in direct opposition to that very same bill that was passed by the House and Senate. And this short list only scratches the surface.

If these aren’t impeachable offenses, what are?

For the well being of the country and its citizens, the integrity of Congress and the survival of the Constitution of the United States, if after all the hearings and investigations you find that it is warranted, I pray that you will not hesitate. Please do not exclude impeachment from your plans “on the table”.