Governing...On the House

Over at wexlerwantshearings.com there are a quarter of a million people who've declared their desire for impeachment hearings against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. There's also an exhortation to contribute to the effort.

So, the American populace must sign on and contribute to the goal of impeachment.

Really.

Here's the way I thought it was supposed to work:

Article 2, Section 4: 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.

Article I, Section 2, Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall...have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.

According to our Constitution, it appears launching of impeachment hearings is the sole purview of our House of Representatives. And despite unassailable evidence that there's been some pretty dicey goings-on in these past seven years, the House is disinclined to even ask questions about them, in the form of hearings. Oh, yesterday saw a half-hearted stab at it, but it was more an effort to pacify the undeterred Wexler and Kucinich than any real attempt to DO THEIR JOBS.

In fact, doing their jobs, or the lack it, seems to be the real problem here. Let's look at just a couple of their duties—for which, incidentally, they receive hefty compensation, the best, free medical care to be found in the United States, and an unending stream of perks:

To declare War...This duty was handily handed over to the Executive Branch a few years back.

To define and punish...Offenses against the Law of Nations..With respect to the Geneva Conventions, which tenets have been dismissed by the Bush administration, this duty requires the convening of impeachment hearings, which were pronounced 'off the table' in 2006.

Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...and provide for the...general Welfare of the United States...They've got the first part of this down but virtually ignore the second.

And here's a limit on the duties of Congress:

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it...This evaporated when our Congress blithely passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006. With a margin of 65–34 in the Senate and 250–170 in the House, our elected officials not only made it possible for our president to declare any one of us 'unlawful enemy combatants' and thereby forfeit our rights to habeas corpus, they defied the Constitution. They did the opposite of their jobs.

It's worth noting here that this Congress, since 2006, has a Democratic Party majority, albeit razor slim. Our loss of habeas corpus occurred on the Democrats' watch. The refusal to impeach has been on their time. One is battered consistently by the remonstrance that the Republicans are filibustering all good actions, but one must then wonder, where was the Democratic filibustering in the preceding Republican majority? If the Republicans are utilizing the tools of the minority to their advantage, I can only applaud the resourcefulness of one party and bemoan the lack of it in the other.

I'm not a fan of what our two-party system has become, but with a tip of my hat to reality, at the very least I'd like our elected officials to make a stab at doing their jobs, and quit asking us to do them for them...while they head off to their doctor visits—on the House.