Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan has announced her candidacy to replace Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
When this first came across my eyes, there was a sense of initial joy that someone intends to run against the aforementioned Congresswoman. Aside from the fact that I adore it when incumbents are challenged for their seats in the political arena, I dislike Mrs. Pelosi greatly.
It isn’t because she is a woman in power and I am some chauvinist who can’t handle that. Rather, her weakness as speaker of the House shows in her policy of constructing grandiose statements of change, when in fact she does the opposite as witnessed by her concessions on the recent agricultural bill in regards to subsidy allotments.
Plus, there is nothing like some good, girl-on-girl, political cat-fighting, even if it results in their neglecting the local constituents they were elected to serve.
That all changed, however, when I discovered why Cindy Sheehan was vying for a congressional seat.
All my sympathies went out the window like the Democrats’ many promises in the November midterm election. Mrs. Sheehan is running on the sole platform of impeaching the president.
In fact, she had given madame speaker of the House an ultimatum ““ either introduce legislation to impeach the president or prepare to be challenged for her congressional seat.
Now as much as I too adore naive, political threats that appear to carry the weight of extortion, this one is just too stupid even for me, mainly because so many people are behind her.
So here it is: Stop trying to impeach the president. It is just such a ridiculous notion. I am not saying I am a fan of his work (because I most certainly am not), but let’s be realistic here.
Do you actually know what the word impeach means?
It means to charge someone with a crime, not the common misconception of removing someone from political office. The president must first be charged with a crime before he can be removed from office.
Now I know there are rampant conspiracy theories about the atrocities our commander in chief has committed, and I don’t doubt that if we lived in a world of perfectly shared evidence that a bunch would be true.
However, I have yet to view anything that resembles clear evidence that not only could raise a charge outlined in our constitution to allow for the president to be impeached, but also to be strong enough to convict him of a crime.
It is sad, but that’s the law of the land. If it were that simple, don’t you think we would have impeached presidents like crazy in past years?
I am one of many Americans who are politically dissatisfied but I realize what can, and in this case, what can’t, be done about it.
Until there is some form of proof beyond circumstantial evidence that President Bush has committed a crime, drop the rhetoric. It’s just plain crazy.
In the mean time, there is, I feel, a justifiable case against our attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.
So Cindy Sheehan, I know you had your heart set on speaker of the House, but would you consider settling for attorney general?
That would be pretty cool minus the whole you have no credentials thing.
Nadler is fourth-year world arts and culture student.