Commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby was just the latest of many pressing reasons, it’s not the most serious reason. Here’s a discussion of additional, more serious, reasons for impeaching Bush and Cheney immediately.  Visit the website of Bill Moyer’s Journal and click on “Watch Video.”  

Why impeachment?  It’s a matter of putting a halt to the setting of bad precedent.  If we don’t make a strong statement when this President (and Vice-President) violate the Constitution, we are inviting future Administrations to violate the Constitution.   The failure to impeach invites future Administrations to drum up another alleged and non-ending “War on Terror.”  Conjuring up such a “war” will serve as a future Administration’s license to act in a lawless way.

This video discussion involves Moyers’ interview of Bruce Fein, a nationally and internationally recognized expert on Constitutional law and John Nichols, an author and political journalist who has been writing the “Online Beat” for THE NATION magazine since 1999. 

Here’s a excerpt:

BILL MOYERS: Sneering is not an impeachable offense.  

BRUCE FEIN: Sneering in isolation is not but this is combined with all of the other things he’s done outside the law. The intelligence gathering, the enemy combatant status, the kidnappings in– dungeons abroad, all in secret and never disclosing anything to Congress or the American people. Indeed, we couldn’t even be discussing some of these issues here like the foreign intelligence collection program if it weren’t leaked to THE NEW YORK TIMES. If he had his way, this would be secret forever.

JOHN NICHOLS: Sneering is not an impeachable sentence. But the founders who had recently fought a revolution against a king named George would tell you that monarchical behavior, the behavior of a king, acting like a king, is an impeachable offense. You need not look for specific laws or statutes. What you need to look for is a pattern of behavior that says that the presidency is superior not merely to Congress but to the laws of the land, to the rules of law. And that is why we ought to be discussing impeachment. Not because of George Bush and Dick Cheney but because we are establishing a presidency that does not respect the rule of law. And people, Americans, are rightly frightened by that. Their fear is the fear of the founders. It is appropriate. It is necessary . . .

BILL MOYERS: You’re saying you want the judiciary committee to call formal hearings on the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney?

BRUCE FEIN: Yes. Because there are political crimes that have been perpetrated in combination. It hasn’t been one, the other being in isolation. And the hearings have to be not into this is a Republican or Democrat. 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.”

Bill Moyers provides some of his own insights here.