Impeach Bush and Cheney, urges McGovern

FORMER US presidential candidate George McGovern has called for President George W Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney to be impeached, saying the case for such a dramatic step “is far stronger” than it was against former disgraced president Richard Nixon.

A former US congressman and senator, Mr McGovern was the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee in 1972, but lost the election to incumbent Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign amid the Watergate scandal in 1974.

Writing in The Washington Post, Mr McGovern said after the 1972 election, he stood clear of calls to impeach Mr Nixon because he was afraid it would be interpreted as an act of personal vengeance. But “today I have made a different choice”, he said.

“The case for impeaching Bush and Cheney is far stronger than was the case against Nixon and Vice- President Spiro Agnew after the 1972 election.”

Mr McGovern wrote that Mr Bush and Mr Cheney “‘have repeatedly violated the constitution”.

“They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world.” He cites as evidence the invasion of Iraq under the pretext of removing its non-existent weapons of mass destruction, “illegal tapping” of citizens’ telephones by government agents and shipping of war-on-terror prisoners for interrogation to other countries without respect for the laws of habeas corpus.

“As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honourable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice-president,” reads the start of Mr McGovern’s article.

He also quotes Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the Nixon impeachment proceedings and has herself called for Mr Bush’s impeachment. Two years ago, she wrote: “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 — 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.”

Impeachment is unlikely, said Mr McGovern, but Congress must still be urged to act.