FULL TRANSCRIPT: PBS's Bill Moyers Journal - "Tough Talk About Impeachment"

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/transcript4.html

July 13, 2007

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.

Impeachment...the word feared and loathed by every sitting president is back. It's in the air and on your computer screen, a growing clamor aimed at both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney.

This week's news only agitated the clamor. The president acknowledged that someone in his administration did leak the name of a CIA agent to the press, but he said let's move on — even as he refused to let his former White House counsel testify to Congress about political influence at the Justice Department.

- snip -

BILL MOYERS CLOSING COMMENTS: As that debate revealed Congress is polarized and paralyzed; And down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Bush still was insisting Congress should stay out of the war. He and Vice President Cheney are holding out for better news from Iraq in September. But when September comes, you can count on more appeals for delay or excuses. That's the formula for perpetual war -- what our founders most feared, because it would turn our Constitution on its head,
"What/shall we do, we who are at war but are asked/to pretend we are not?"

What shall we do? impeachment hearings are one way to go, as you heard Fein and Nichols say. In the meantime, those of us in public television have an obligation to make sure viewers like you stay in the loop. I wish we had carried the congressional debate this week in full -- all of it -- in prime time. When we broadcast teach-ins on the Vietnam war, and the Watergate hearings during the trial of Richard Nixon, it was a real public service -- the reason PBS was created. We should keep Iraq in prime time every week -- the fighting and dying, the suffering, the debate, the politics -- the extraordinary costs. It's months until September. This war is killing us now, body and soul.

That's it for the journal. I'm Bill Moyers.

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT AT LINK

Representatives!!!!!! Thank you again Hissyspit!!!!!

Every DUer should see this discourse.

Very good.

This is one of the most revealing conversations about impeachment per se, as well as one of the deepest references to the real meaning of our constitution and how the Bush administration represents the most serious threat to it in our history, much to the chagrin, of course, of our founding fathers who put into place their formulas for the very reason of preventing such misuse and abuse of power. Unhappily it also reveals that the remedies remaining are quite few given the disposition of our "supine" Congress (not to mention the lackluster performance of the media). Apparently, only the will of the American people remains, and it is a stretch even to count on that for redemption or salvation of the Constitution of the United States. These are dark times people, very dark indeed.

re: If Bush and Cheney saw the "light" and said that they would follow the constitution then impeachment
proceedings could stop. I think what was has occurred warrants full impeachment proceedings. We just can't
ignore the propaganda effort that lead to Iraq, the failure to follow-up on warnings on 9-11, the pre and post
negligence and failures on Hurricane Katrina, illegal detentions, warrantless wiretaps, torture, those who have
died while imprisoned without trial and the fiasco that has occurred in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the no bid
contracts, the sell off on public land holdings, election tampering, politicization of the DOJ and
other federal departments and the neglect of our veterans.

untrustworthy, greedy and vindictive. I want them out of there, no second chances. The evidence also seems to show that they weren't even duly elected by the people; I wish there had been some mention of this in the discussion, with ways to prevent the same thing from ever happening again. It was good the problems with the "fourth estate", the media, were brought up.

senator to oppose certification of the 2000 election, we had that in 2004 but it was toothless and the second swindle went off as
scheduled.

BRUCE FEIN: "I go back to the real vulnerability and weakness of Congress, that they don't have anybody who can, as a chairman or even asking a question like John or me say, "Mr. Attorney General, you answer that question. This is the United States of America. Transparency is the rule here. We don't have secret government. That's what Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about in the Gulag. That's not the United States of America. We pay your salary. We have a right to know 'cause it's our duty to decide whether what you're doing is legal and wise, not yours. Answer that question or you're held in contempt right now." And that's-- and all you need is that tone of voice. But what happens up there? "Well, would you please answer?" Well, are you sure? When-- could you get John Ashcroft? I mean, it's just staggering."

I read that whole transcript. I wish we had congress critters with this level of outrage in them...

"This is something that needs to set a precedent, whoever occupies the White House in 2009. You do not want to have that occupant, whether it's John McCain or Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani or John Edwards to have this authority to go outside the law and say, "I am the law. I do what I want. No one else's view matters."

None of the candidates are saying they will give up the illegal powers of the presidency that the bushes have acquired. Do you want Hillary deciding, all on her own, who is an enemy combatant? How about if we let a Joseph Stalin decide?

Thanks for posting this.

the problem with the Democrats opposing impeachment is that they are automatically making this a political issue, claiming how Dems need to focus on pushing our own agenda. The impeachment issue is much larger than politics, and if they could just open their eyes they would see an opportunity to form a much stronger coalition across party lines. The majority of Americans are beginning to see this, so it means that many more Republicans will eventually come around.

waiting for the video to be posted to watch again

seen the video. I am getting steamed here! So another kick!