The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.Why people still give these guys the benefit of the doubt is beyond me. They lost all credibility on September 12, 2001 when they asked Richard Clarke, their then terrorism chief, to connect the events of the previous day to Iraq, even though there was no connection to make.
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice-President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself.
The direct involvement of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney in the outing of a CIA operative rises to the level impeachment. And, as far as I'm concerned, this revelation by the former White House Press Secretary is sufficient enough evidence to put impeachment on the floor of the US House of Representatives.
The members of that chamber should return to Washington DC immediately, bypass committee hearings, and vote to impeach. The Senate should return following that vote and remove both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney from office. From there, federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald should charge both men with treason (among other things), and then the war crimes tribunal should charge both men with war crimes.
Anything less than impeachment, removal from office, and charges of treason and war crimes would be insufficient. These men have damaged the presidency, the Constitution, and the United States of America beyond recognition. We can't afford to wait the 14 months left in their term and then let them go free.
Don't think for a minute that Republicans would back away from such a confrontation if these crimes had been committed by "President Gore" or "President Kerry." Had a Democratic president done the things Bush and Cheney have done, that president would now be a former president and he or she would be sitting in a jail cell in the Hague, Netherlands.
Give me break Speaker Pelosi. Do your fucking job!
Say it with me folks:
Impeachment.
Now!
