Customer Reviews

Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When historians write of the period in which we are currently living, they are likely to judge this presidency as the most destructive since the foundation of the country. They are also likely to ask a central question: why did the populace accept the situation in such a docile fashion, with so little sense of proportion? How could there have been an impeachment of Mr. Bush's predecessor for having sex with an intern and yet no serious effort to remove from office Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, whose lies and incompetence have led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths in Iraq and will doom the planet to millennia of global warming? This book, edited by Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips, presents the case cogently and thoroughly, with much useful information. Even if one may not think that each item of the bill of particulars rises to the level of impeachment, so much does that one cannot help but wonder how the current Administration can remain not only in office but out of prison. Read this book -- and act!

Everyone knows that George W Bush and his sidekick have done a few things wrong. If you want the entire list, this is it. I thought I knew all their crimes but I am shocked.
My congressman & both senators are getting a photocopy of the list with a notice, "Things cannot get much worse anyway. If you do not follow this guide, do not expect my vote again. I can go green or libertarian if you cannot uphold The Constitution of the United States of America by removing these criminals."

Co-editors: Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips. I recognized Peter's name because he wrote the last chapter in "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out". I jumped at the chance to read this book and was really rewarded. I would rate the book a 10 on a scale of 1-5. Contributors like Greg Palast, Dahr Jamail, Mark Crispin Miller, etc. cover a wide range of topics all of which should lead to impeachment.

The chapters are about 20 pages each and the sequencing of topics is also noteworthy. One leads to the next with insightful explorations of the topics and the consciousness or lack of by the current administration.

I have already begun to mail copies to people who can carry this important issue forward. The book is a motivator to get involved. There is too much at stake and the time is too short to wait for someone else to carry the ball.

I'm sorry that I am going to break up the five star party for this book, but to do less would be dishonest. While I found the book to be good, with useful information, I also found several flaws that hurt the book for use as a primary source for those that wish to learn about the possibility of impeachment of President Bush.

The book is written as separate essays by various authors on different subjects that could lead to the impeachment of the President. Each of the articles, alone, would stand nicely and be a valuable piece in a magazine. When grouped together, however, there is a repetition of information that slows the book down and makes it tiring to read. Better editing could correct this problem.

A more serious flaw is the promotion of rather abstract theories to use in an impeachment procedure. Voter fraud in 2004, for one, probably happened, but it would be almost impossible to investigate thoroughly and incorporate as an impeachment article. And, while global warming is occurring, I don't think you can impeach a president for lack of action. That would be a policy decision, and if it were an impeachable offense, it will make every president a sitting duck for everyone that doesn't like their particular policies.

Finally, use of arguments such President Bush's campaign in Haiti are flawed. It will be difficult to get an impeachment with traditional charges, let alone on something that most Americans haven't heard about and probably don't care about either. Muddying the water with these items will make impeachment more difficult, and failing to get a conviction a near certainty. In addition, the writings are too "liberal" for most main stream Americans...the same ones who get their news from Fox and their ilk.

Having said all of that, I do think the book is an important work that should be read by every American. It highlights the numerous failures of this President and would make for excellent background material on a possible impeachment. And, finally, I think this book will be used as a textbook for years to come when the failings of Bush are studied.

In Impeach the President, Dennis Loo and Peter Phillips make a compelling case for the impeachments of George Bush and Dick Chaney. The first essay is the best source I've read on what constitutes impeachment and the history of that process. The authors give twelve reasons why there should be an impeachment and offer a stunning and brilliant indictment of electoral fraud in the 2004 elections, of our mendacious "embedded" media,of the use of torture and war crimes by "the leaders of the free world," failed policies and Katrina, as well as and indictment of U.S. global goals, strategies and methods. This is a must read follow up to the November 2006 electoral rejection of Mr. Bush and his policies. I recommeded it highly for classes on American government and U.S. foreign policy.

This present volume may perhaps not be as legally sound as the Center for Constitutional Rights slimmer volume Articles of Impeachment, nor may it be as comprehensive as Lindorf's larger Case for Impeachment, yet it contains impassioned and scholarly please for justice for our nation, including from the great popular historian Howard Zinn and from everyone's beloved mother Ms. Sheehan.

Other contributers, including one of the editors, are familiar to those who follow the important PRoject Censored series. This book is a great rallying cry for one of those most under-reported events, the swelling movement to impeach this currently seated president. It carefully examines all of the well-known causes, including the voter fraud in both national elections, the flip flopping reasons for war with Iraq, this administrations crimes against humanity internationally, negligence at home including around 9/11 and the willfull criminal negligence leaving our elderly and infirm to die in the rain in New Orleans after having taken on responsibility days before, demonstrating nothing effective had happened to protect us since 9/11. For these and several other reasons the writers find reason to Impeach the President.

If you want a brief and legally sound presentation of the facts, just the facts, go for the Center for Constitutional Rights. But certainly supplement with this more elaborated and longer study which combines impassioned voices like the famous March on Washington forty years ago which is notable now under more dire circumstances only in its absence.

This is a powerful, shocking, page-turning exposition of not only the impeachable offenses of Bush-Cheney, but the deeper empire-building pathology of these guys and others that make up an elite network of politicians, corporate leaders, military leaders, and intellectuals that have been working to dominate the globe - the aptly named, "Global Dominance Group." This work goes beyond the other Bush-Cheney impeachment books to reveal how and why we have come to our current crisis in this country, thereby providing the necessary understanding for eventually turning this country back into the vision of our Founding Fathers, a democratic republic that respects the rule of law and other "enlightened" principles of human rights, equality, and justice. A truly remarkable work of writing and research that will wake you up to the real workings and intentions of this administration.

Kudos to Drs. Loo and Phillips for bringing together and contributing to Impeach the President. While I have kept contemporaneously informed with respect to most of the issues addressed therein (read: I have been FREAKING OUT for 6 years now,) what made the book refreshing and, in my opinion, the best of its genre, was not just the excellent recounting of the egregious abuses perpetrated by this Administration, but that most of the authors asked, and attempted to answer - what can we do? And what really sets the book apart from all the others is that the authors acknowledge the reality that nothing - nothing - short of the most organized and best prepared citizen movement will bring about the change that is required if democracy is to survive.

Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney, Edited by Dennis Loo & Peter Phillips (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006), 326 pages, $17.95.

Unlike other books on the topic of impeachment, Impeach the President's main objective is not to expose the major crimes of the present administration - although they do that in a magnificent fashion. Instead, this timely book's goal is to uncover and analyze the truly dangerous extremist movement that Bush and Cheney and their inner circle represent. Were it only a matter of their impeachable offenses and reprehensible conduct, both Bush and Cheney would have been gone long ago. The major question here then is not, "What are the grounds for impeachment?" but "Why are they STILL in office?"

Impeach the President is as timely as tomorrow's headlines! Not only does the reader get an extremely thorough analysis of the life and death questions before us, but the writing is like a sharp dagger: incisive, compelling and drawing blood. The evidence offered is thoroughly documented, and after reading this book one will be far better informed about the issues. An absolute must read for anyone who cares about this country and about the world. Impeach the President is written not only for those who have not been following the news closely but also for those who have.

Wayne S. Wooden, Ph.D.,
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
Co-author of Renegade Kids, Suburban Outlaws

This excellent book distinguishes itself from other pro-impeachment books that bemoan the "rogue" Bush/Cheney regime as an aberration from the (presumably kind and gentle) presidential administrations that preceded it, and to which the authors of those other books wish to return. Loo and Phillips have assembled a collection of essays that make a different case; namely that the U.S. has been on the wrong track in terms of executive power for decades (some would say centuries). In this view, Bush and Cheney are merely a more extreme and obvious flavor of accumulating executive abuses, and the drive to impeach them is a necessary and convenient line drawn in the sand against further consolidation of executive power generally.

Excerpts:

"...the present campaign for the impeachment of George Bush has the possibility of going beyond the previous experiences, by calling into question the fundamental thrust of American foreign policy, the class nature of national politics, and the corporate domination of the culture."

(from Howard Zinn's introduction)


"Both major parties in this country are in agreement that this new economic order of globalization, this security state, is the right thing."

(from Loo's Chap. 2, Never Elected, Not Once: the Immaculate Deception and the Road Ahead)


"The aggressive, behind-the-scenes strategy to concentrate nearly all power in the Executive Branch and make it unaccountable to any vestiges of democratic monitoring is more than the product of the efforts of a power-hungry administration. The general trend towards stripping Congress of most of its power (including especially its constitutional right to declare war) predates Bush and Cheney ..."

(from Bowley's Chap. 9: The Campaign for Unfettered Power: Executive Supremacy, Secrecy and Surveillance.)