BOB FERTIK HAS A QUESTION FOR SPEAKER PELOSI: IS IMPEACHMENT "ON THE TABLE" FOR TORTURE?

I asked a friend of mine, Bob Fertik, co-founder of Democrats.com, AfterDowningStreet.org, and ImpeachPAC.org, to guest blog here at DWT this morning about the new impeachment petition Democrats.com put up today beacuse of the admission from Bush that he approved of illegal torture planning and operations at the highest levels of his regime. His report:

Impeachment has been "off the table" for Congressional Democrats since Nancy Pelosi told Tim Russert on May 7, 2006, "[impeachment] isn't what we're about."

Oddly, impeachment has also been "off the table" for most progressive blogs as well [though not DWT, which ferverntly supports it], despite the steady accumulation of overwhelming evidence of Bush's innumerable crimes.

But this may be changing since Bush took ownership of the approval of torture by the "Principals Group" of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and George Tenet.

On Friday, Bush told ABC News, "I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

Since that stunning revelation, many leading bloggers have weighed in, trying to find some way to get the media to give it the attention it deserves. But the TV talking heads won't touch it, and neither will the news or editorial pages of the nation's leading newspapers.

So what can we do?

The ACLU jumped on the issue by calling for a Special Prosecutor. Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, wrote, "Congress is duty-bound by the Constitution not only to hold the president, vice president, and all civil officers to account, but it must also send a message to future presidents that it will use its constitutional powers to prevent illegal, and immoral conduct."

But is a Special Prosecutor the way to do this? Unfortunately not. Congress can't appoint a Special Prosecutor, it can only beg Attorney General Michael Mukasey to do so-- and Mukasey doesn't believe waterboarding is torture.

Besides, Bush already admitted he approved torture; the only question is whether Congress actually cares.

Ultimately there's only one way to hold a President and Vice President accountable, and that's impeachment.

This morning, Democrats.com posted a new impeachment petition to Congress specifically on torture. Our initial goal was 10,000 signatures, but we passed 12,000 in just one day and swamped the server.

I also posted a poll at DailyKos, where opposition to impeachment has been strong because of fear it would hurt our Presidential candidate in November.

Surprisingly, only 4% embraced that objection today, while 85% supported impeachment either to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for committing war crimes (59%), to show the world America does not tolerate war crimes (22%), or to prevent future Presidents from committing war crimes (4%).

The new wave of support for impeachment among both bloggers and activists is visceral. We knew our government was engaging in torture, but thought it was largely the product of obscure [alien] White House lawyers like John Yoo. So it came as a genuine shock to learn that all of the most powerful people in the administration were directly involved-- including Bush himself.

This revelation forces us to make a fundamental moral choice: whether to quietly accept torture by our government, or insist that our Democratic Congress hold Bush and Cheney accountable through the only means available, namely impeachment.

The choice is becoming clear. Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic Caucus may dearly want to keep impeachment "off the table," but when the issue is as fundamental and profound as torture, they-- and we-- really have no choice.

Dr. Martin Luther King famously said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam."

Thanks to Bush's admission that he approved torture, that time has come for us in relation to impeachment.

So if you don't want to be silent, share your views with the people you pay to represent you in Washington:

-Bob Fertik


UPDATE: ANOTHER FRIEND, WOID, SENT A LETTER TO THE NY TIMES

As far as I can see, just about nobody is reporting on this in the old media. I did a google news search a day or two ago and came up with nothing except the original stories ("'Principals' OK'd Harsh Tactics" and "Bush Aware of Advisers' Interrogation Talks") on the ABC News website. I haven't been watching Olbermann, who'd be the first person I'd expect to jump on this. Has he?

As usual, the web is way out front on this one. But even at this late date, I'm still shocked! shocked! at how corrupted our original alleged news media have become.

The NY Times is the newspaper I read on paper, every morning. I wrote after realizing I haven't seen one single word about this.

Bush must feel terrible... all the other dictators get headlines for their power grabs.


To the Editor:

Virtually every letter to the Times addresses a particular story in the newspaper. But I'm writing to you about a story that hasn't appeared.

Last week, ABC News broke the story that the National Security Council, including then-members Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft, specifically approved of (to use the ugly euphemism) "enhanced interrogation" techniques to be used on detainees at Guantánamo Bay-- including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding, among other cruel and unusual punishments. These are the identical tactics that surfaced later at Abu Ghraib, and for which only low-ranking "bad apples" were prosecuted.

To learn that these techniques of torture (to remove the euphemism) were prescribed at the highest levels of our government, in fact in the White House itself, is stunning. Even more so is the casual admission by President Bush, also broken by ABC News on Friday, that he approved of the NSC's actions.

This is clear evidence of violations of the Geneva Convention-- possible war crimes-- being authorized by the President himself, as well as by his inner circle.

Each day since then, I've checked the Times for coverage of these revelations. I've learned plenty about slips of the tongue by the presidential candidates, doping in sports, and noise pollution in Cairo-- but as far as I can see, not a single word about the fact that the United States adopted torture as official policy, signed off by President Bush and his closest advisers.

I realize this story originated with another news organization-- but surely the Times could find SOME news hook that would let you break your silence on what may be one of the most shocking developments in our history as a country. Or don't you consider it fit to print?