EDITOR'S NOTES

By Tim Redmond

tredmond@sfbg.com

We've been here before, twice.

The first time it came up, back in 1973, there was a guy named Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office, and on May 10, the Guardian raised the obvious question: "Is Nixon stupid or naïve or is he desperately trying to fudge the cover-up and minimize the worst political scandal in American history?"

The grounds for impeachment were pretty clear, and we were way out in front.

Then there was 1998, when Bill Clinton was in the hot seat. Sure, we said, cavorting with an intern was dumb, abusive, and a sign of truly bad personal and professional judgment. But impeachment was serious business; this was just a $50 million fuss over a blow job. The whole thing was just partisan politics, an attempt by the Republicans in Congress to undo the results of a national election they couldn't win.

Of course, Clinton's legal problem – the wrench the Republicans grabbed to torque his political future – wasn't his rather tawdry liaison; it was his clumsy attempt to lie about it. But think about it: Who (other than Clinton's family and Ms. Lewinsky) was really hurt by the lies? It's safe to say nobody died.

Which is why G.W. Bush is a lot more like R.M. Nixon.

When I first started to see "Visualize impeachment" bumper stickers around town, they were mostly an expression of frustration, sort of like "Reelect Gore." As Steven T. Jones reports on page 17, for the first four of George W. Bush's five years in the Oval Office, the "I" word was mostly confined to the political fringes. Not any more.

Social movements tend to ignite with some sort of single flashpoint, and this one seems to be the revelations that the Bush administration spied on thousands of Americans without bothering to get warrants. But the case actually goes a lot deeper: Clinton may have lied about his sex life, but Bush lied when he took the nation to war, a war that's taken tens of thousands of lives.

So this goes far beyond political sour grapes. The evidence that we have right now is enough to argue that Bush (and Cheney – you have to go after both of them) committed enough in the way of "high crimes and misdemeanors" to justify a full congressional investigation.

So far, the official leadership of the Democratic Party has been awfully, awfully cautious about this. Howard Dean is tiptoeing around. Nancy Pelosi is ducking for cover. John Kerry won't touch it.

But the need for a committee with subpoena power to start digging into the criminal aspects of Bush and Cheney's imperial presidency is growing by the day. (Remember: The most serious dirt on Watergate didn't come out until the congressional investigations got rolling).

Official Washington isn't going to make that happen without some grassroots pressure. In fact, it feels as if the politicians (as usual) are waiting around for the public to start to demand action.

This ought to be the defining issue in this year's midterm congressional elections – and if the Democrats take back either house, it ought to be the first agenda item for 2007.