Bush and the flag: A case for impeachment?

June 22, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

(It’s great to be back here guest blogging at The Carpetbagger Report, and I’d like to thank Steve for giving me the opportunity once again. I look forward to posting here over the next several days. And now, on with the show…)

**********

At AMERICAblog, John Aravosis asks if President Bush defaced American flags in Vienna yesterday. Well, he certainly defaced some in 2003. (See the telling photo at John’s blog.)

Given that writing on the flag is illegal, John thinks that Republicans should add it to their constitutional amendment against flag burning. “Then let the Republicans decide if they’re going to vote that George Bush defaced the flag, or whether they’re going to defend defacing the flag.”

A good idea, if you ask me. It’s a stupid wedge of an amendment that would sully the Constitution with a partisan restriction on freedom of expression. America can surely withstand the burning of its flag (and the writing upon it) without having to ban it. Or do these self-appointed gatekeepers of patriotism in the Republican Party think that America is so weak as to crumble from such expressions of protest?

Regardless, I’ll go further than John. Why not begin impeachment proceedings against Bush? Is that not how Republicans ought to respond to Bush’s transgression? If he writes on the flag, he must also hate mom, baseball, and apple pie. He must have nothing but contempt for the United States of America. He may pledge his allegiance, but defacing the flag… well, that says it all. (Think how they’d respond if the transgressor was, oh, say, Bill or Hillary. Or anyone else on our side of the fence.)

So, Republicans? Are you prepared to do what you know you must do? Or are you just a bunch of hypocrites looking to score cheap political points.

Your move.

How about no defacing the Constitution with stupid amendments that tell you what you can’t do. For a document that many other countries have used as an example of how to organize their governments, this amendment would stick out like a festering boil. Repubs just have a knack for wallowing in muck for the sake of political posturing.

  • “Given that writing on the flag is illegal,….” – – – Michael

    So, how about we tattoo the names of “all those who have fallen in Iraq” on Kid George? He could be a living, breathing monument to the audacious criminality that led the United States of America into its 21-Century version of Viet Nam. This, of course, would have immediate benefits for the federal budget:

    (1) He’d be easy to maintain. Feed him a gallon of cheap beer, some pretzels, and park him in front of a FAUXNEWS broadcast loop.

    (2) Security would be dirt cheap. Have you any idea how much it costs to illuminate the Washington Monument? All Kid George needs is his TV set, and a couple of Barney-Fife types. Some trigger happy individual with only one bullet—Cheney, perhaps?

    (3) No grass to mow. Think about all that acreage at Arlington—or Gettysburg. Just let him grow a beard. He could play “terrorist” every Halloween.

    We could truck his carcass around to county fairs every so often, for pie-throwing contests. Although, come to think of it, that could constitute a terrible waste of pies. Cow-pies, perhaps.

    Oh…this could be so-ooooo fun….

  • “…When the President does it, that means that it it is not illegal”
    — Nixon, 1977

  • Anything signed by Bush is defaced.
    The man is a disaster.
    We need a Constitutional ammendment to prohibit Bush from signing anything.

  • Think secret prisons.
    He did it in Vienna. Did you forget American law does not apply in other countries ??

  • Hating Bush is fine to a point. After that, it becomes a distraction. Do the Dems have the balls, the viciousness and the political smarts to make this incident into a firestorm? I highly doubt it, but would love to be surprised.

    I believe John’s point is that here is a perfect incident with the president doing something “un-patriotic” and the Dems will not be able to use this as a wedge to whip up some debate to make the Repubs look bad.

    We should not obsess about Bush. He is around for 3 more years and will do countless more stupid and possibly (probably) illegal things. None of that should surprise anyone. Our mission is to eviscerate the Republican party in particular, and the conservative movement in general.

    W is like a tumor, a big malignant tumor. Sure he will be removed, but does that mean there aren’t any other tumors hiding in safe places, waiting to grow and unleash their disease on America? Republicans are a cancer upon the nation, and they must be treated with the most aggressive demotherapy possible.

  • The only point to the whole exercise is to take one of their campaign wedge issues and shove it down their own go-damned throats. If the shoe were on the other foot, they’d be blowing their heads off all over the place screaming about how gay communist hippies were destroying the culture and poisoning the minds of the children. Desecrating the flag was a terrorist action.

    Do the Democrats have the balls and the appetite to actually play the game and force the Republicans to show how hypocritical their electioneering on flag desecration really is. Of course they don’t because they are as weak and comfortable as the minority as the Republicans are powerful and gleeful about fucking everything up.

    • Comments are closed.