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John Nichols: Baldwin answers call of conscience, backs impeachment

John Nichols  —  6/26/2008 8:49 pm

U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, recognizes that the Constitution is a constant document.

Baldwin knows that the Constitution is not some artifact that has meaning only on July Fourth or other patriotic holidays. It always applies. Members of Congress do not swear an oath "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... except in election years."

It is with this understanding that Baldwin, who represents a city named for the father of the Constitution, has added her name to the honor roll of House members who support the impeachment of President Bush.

Unfortunately, most members of Congress take the document that underpins the American system seriously only when it is politically convenient.

So it is that, while George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors merit impeachment, there has been no rush by House members to co-sponsor Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich's proposal to hold the president to account.

But Baldwin is not just another House member. In a chamber where the avoidance of duty is a common crisis, Madison's representative respects and embraces the charge of her oath of office: to protect and defend the Constitution.

Baldwin is now one of seven House members supporting the 35 articles of impeachment that Kucinich introduced several weeks ago. Those articles detail a litany of abuses ranging from the dispatching of U.S. troops to fight undeclared wars to warrantless wiretapping to the sanctioning of torture and the radical abuses of authority associated with the administration's campaign to discredit critics such as former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

The charges are not new. Nor are they particularly adventurous.

And, as former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee has confirmed, they are supported by evidence from within the Bush/Cheney White House.

It is troubling that, for the most part, even progressive members of Congress have shied away from signing on to Kucinich's resolution.

Why? Because, in this presidential election year, House Democrats are more focused on the political work of avoiding controversy than they are on their constitutional obligations.

While it may be true that the republic has been endangered, that the rule of law has been undermined, that the essential underpinning of the American experiment -- a system of checks and balances designed by the Founders to prevent monarchical rule by a president turned warrior king -- hangs in the balance, the political class in Washington chooses not to engage in a process of renewal.

It is at such points that the representatives of the people are tested. We see whether they have about them the stuff of a Madison, a Jefferson, a Lincoln or a Barbara Jordan -- the Texas representative who said in another election year, when the impeachment of Richard Nixon was proposed, "My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution."

As of today, there are seven members of the House worthy of sitting in the chamber created by the framers and once occupied by Barbara Jordan: Kucinich, the maverick congressman who regularly puts principle above party; Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey plus Sam Farr, another Californian with a long track record of opposing the war in Iraq and presidential lawlessness; Florida Democrat Robert Wexler, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee; and progressive stalwart Maurine Hinchey, D-N.Y.; and Tammy Baldwin.

When she stands with this group, Baldwin is in good company.

Baldwin, Kucinich, Farr, Hinchey, Lee, Wexler and Woolsey have in common a determination to follow the dictates of the Constitution rather than the misguided demands of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her political managers. ("Misguided" because the fear that Pelosi and her circle have of an accountability moment has no historical precedent -- in fact, opposition parties that have pursued impeachment appropriately and aggressively have been rewarded for doing so, as happened in 1974, when the vote by Jordan and her colleagues for Nixon's impeachment was followed by sweeping electoral advances for her fellow Democrats.)

Of course, Baldwin has been one of the steadiest supporters of impeachment initiatives in the House, signing on to a series of calls for inquiries and votes that have challenged the wrongdoing of the president, the vice president and their appointees. The Madison Democrat was, for instance, one of the first members of the Judiciary Committee to endorse House Resolution 333, Kucinich's proposal to impeach Dick Cheney. And she was a key backer of Washington Democrat Jay Inslee's move to open impeachment hearings for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, which helped force Gonzales' resignation.

But stepping up to support the impeachment of Bush, especially at this critical point, confirms the depth of her commitment to the Constitution.

The discussion of impeachment -- the tool the Founders gave us to preserve the republic -- has finally led to the desk where Harry Truman said the buck stops: that of the president. Many of us would have preferred to get there sooner. Many of us are aware that congressional Democrats who know George Bush has violated his own oath of office will refuse to hold the president to account for his assaults on the rule of law. Their cowardice and disrespect for the intellect and patriotic stamina of the American people are likely to stymie justice.

But if there is one lesson of history, it is that the heroes of the American endeavor have ever been those who separate themselves from the compromises of the crowd and lend their names to the cause of the Constitution. Baldwin has so separated herself. And she stands on the right side of history -- even if this puts her on the wrong side of Democratic bosses who mistake strategy for principle.

John Nichols is associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com

John Nichols  —  6/26/2008 8:49 pm