BROOKLYN KNOWS WHAT'S UP! ELIZABETH HOLZMAN MAKES THE CASE FOR IMPEACHING BUSH

You know how it is when one of the kids from the old neighborhood makes good? Like everyone feels proud and all. I don't know how Ken feels about this-- because Schumer can be a dirty political lowlife when it suits him-- but overall, he's one of the better U.S. Senators and he's the only current U.S. Senator (not counting disgraced nitwit and clown Norm Coleman) from our old neighborhood in Brooklyn. I mean Coleman I'm embarrassed about. I feel pretty damn good about Schumer. I mean he's not Howard Dean or Barbara Boxer but... well you probably saw how nice he took on that Scalito monstrosity Bush is trying to force onto the Supreme Court! But this isn't about Chuck Schumer. It's another kid from our neighborhood who we can be proud of: Elizabeth Holzman. Remember her, Ken? I think she was like a few years ahead of us in school (or maybe a decade). But she used to go to the same Kings Highway pizzeria and egg-cream soda fountains we did!

Anyway, the new issue of THE NATION has an article she wrote about the compelling case for the impeachment of George Bush. What a great neighborhood we had! Holtzman, a former District Attorney and an awesome crusading congresswoman-- youngest woman to ever serve in Congress-- key to the efforts of excising Nixon from the body politic, wrote the powerful article which draws the parallels between the two criminal presidents.

Recalling the Nixon impeachment, she sighs: "At the time, I hoped that our committee's work would send a strong signal to future Presidents that they had to obey the rule of law. I was wrong." Now of course, she sees that the only impact the holding Nixon to account has been to make Bush more secretive and sneaky and authoritarian. Holzman decries Bush's arrogance in shredding international treaties as well as his disdain for the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions and for the torture scandals "These concerns," she writes "have been compounded by growing evidence that the President deliberately misled the country into the war in Iraq. But it wasn’t until the most recent revelations that President Bush directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) -- and argued that, as Commander in Chief, he had the right in the interests of national security to override our country’s laws -- that I felt the same sinking feeling in my stomach as I did during Watergate.

"As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law -- and repeatedly violates the law -- thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office. ... But impeachment and removal from office will not happen unless the American people are convinced of its necessity after a full and fair inquiry into the facts and law is conducted. That inquiry must commence now."

She concludes that there will be a collective sign of relief once Bush is removed and constitutional government is re-established in America. Let's hear it for the home team!