Impeaching Cheney and Bush: One Side of the Story
Ken A. Bode
July 25, 2007
On July 13, Bill Moyers Journal featured a program entitled, "Tough Talk About Impeachment: Should Congress Start Proceedings?" The hour was devoted to an issue that scarcely makes it into the mainstream public dialogue or onto the editorial pages of the country. Thus, Mr. Moyers served a useful function by bringing it to public attention.
Many Americans, and certainly a large portion of the usual PBS viewing demographic, have lived through two impeachment efforts, Nixon and Clinton, and understand this to be the most serious procedure in our political system, short of going to war. The Moyers program made me wonder why impeachment is not taken more seriously today, and his guest experts made the case that it should be, indeed, must be.
The two experts who filled the hour were, first, Bruce Fein, who served as deputy attorney general under President Reagan and helped to write one of the articles of impeachment against President Clinton. Fein has also been associated with conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The second guest was John Nichols who has written a book entitled "The Genius of Impeachment" and is the Washington editor of the liberal magazine, "The Nation."
In an hour of very intelligent conversation, the two guests made the case that the Founding Fathers considered impeachment to be a normal process intended to restrain the excesses of government officials. It is not in itself a Constitutional crisis they argue, but it is strong medicine designed to prevent a Constitutional crisis. Fein and Nichols lay out all the reasons that Congress should move immediately to convene impeachment hearings, not just on President Bush but on Vice President Cheney as well. They argue that impeachment proceedings can have beneficial effects, even when unsuccessful.
I will not review their case for impeachment here. My purpose is only to examine the structure of the Moyers program. On the surface, Fein and Nichols seem to be a balanced panel, and I expected to hear a debate directed toward both sides of the question proposed in the title of the program. In fact, they were clones of one another, both arguing in favor of the proposition, each ready to complete the other's sentences. The program was one-sided and devoid of balance.
In an earlier CPB Ombudsman posting, I argued that it is not necessary that every PBS public affairs program be balanced within each episode. On the other hand, it is not likely that Bill Moyers will revisit this issue to provide the alternative point of view. Setting that aside, in my opinion this would have been a stronger program and less vulnerable to charges of political bias had some of the objections to impeachment been supplied by an expert with a different view, or at least one who might have responded differently to Mr. Moyer's probing.
For example, Fein and Nichols were disdainful of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's position, that "impeachment is not on the table." Nichols was sarcastically pleased that Speaker Pelosi hasn't taken some other part of the Constitution off the table, like freedom of speech. Going further Nichols asserted that Pelosi is "disregarding her oath of office," adding disdainfully, "I think the members of our Congress have no understanding of the Constitution."
There was no serious discussion of why Pelosi might not choose to take their advice and convene impeachment hearings immediately. Could it be that such an action might bring to a halt any serious effort to reach bi-partisan agreement on a withdrawal plan for Iraq? That it might harden partisan lines in Congress and pollute the 2008 presidential campaign? That it would give the neo-cons defending Mr. Bush verification that efforts to withdraw from Iraq are underwritten by hatred for the Bush-Cheney administration? That she believes there is no possibility that impeachment would be successful, and that it would polarize Congress to the point of stasis? Maybe none of the above or all, but it would have been nice to hear a dissenting argument.
At one point, Mr. Moyers suggested that the Democrats might be unwilling to risk a backlash in an election year, but he demurred no further. The notion that impeachment is a good thing, even when unsuccessful, went unchallenged. Many who lived through the governmental paralysis and political divisions produced by the efforts to impeach Bill Clinton might not agree. And, what was that all about? "Infidelity," suggests Mr. Moyers. More, to be sure, but that's where it all began.
This was an interesting program, but entirely one-sided. Did it violate PBS guidelines? Michael Getler, the ombudsman for PBS addressed that question and cited this PBS response. "PBS seeks to present, over time, content that addresses a broad range of subjects from a variety of viewpoints . . . While we expect all programs to strive for fairness and accuracy, we also want to accommodate a variety of approaches to subject matter in addition to a variety of viewpoints."
"Tough Talk About Impeachment: Should Congress Start Proceedings?" was applauded roundly by those who detest the Bush-Cheney Administration. But for those who believe PBS programming leans inexorably to the Left, it was confirming evidence.