"Real Issues" -- An Open Letter to the South Florida Sun Sentinel

(The below in response to a scathing editorial, last week, in a major Florida newspaper lambasting Rep. Robert Wexler from Delray Beach, Florida):

Dear Editor:

Your June 12th editorial, in which you chastise Rep. Wexler for co-sponsoring 35 articles of impeachment, sent shock waves down my spine.

While it's true, six months, or a year, ago, I might have agreed with your argument that the rising price of gas, credit crunch, and foreclosures render impeachment of a lame duck president an "ivory tower debate," in light of increasing revelations about top down manipulations of the definition of torture, redactions of testimony, and/or handwritten notes, by interrogators of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and the torture industrial complex evolving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and, more importantly, Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain's assertion that he abjures the Supreme Court's decision, this week, to allow detainees to seek remedy in civilian courts, how can any editorial board of any major newspaper in America consider the inauguration of impeachment proceedings against this president as anything less than essential?

Yes, Mr. Bush is on his way out, but unless Congress takes a strong stand against his policies like NSA warrantless surveillance on ordinary citizens in violation of FISA laws, as well as his contempt for checks and balances, we will see more of these policies in his next incarnation in the form of Senator John McCain who counts, among his campaign staff, those major telecoms that are working for immunity from prosecution which is shorthand for saying that Senator McCain will continue warrantless spying, waterboarding, allowing interrogator's notes to mysteriously disappear from evidence, as well as those meat and potatoes tax policies set in place by what history will remember as the most corrupt political administration in our nation's history.

You owe Robert Wexler an apology, as well as Dennis Kucinich, and all those in Congress who have decided to take a stand against a regime that has brought infamy, and shame, upon this country, as well as international condemnation. Kudos to the congressman from Delray Beach for having the courage to support articles of impeachment.

This election is not about red states versus blue states. This election is about those who want to continue down the road of preemptive war, illegal wiretapping, molesting our environment in favor of NAFTA, and the interests of big business, seeing to it that the rich continue to get richer while the rest of us get front row seats, and returning us to the days when a college education, and a car, were only for the privileged. Those of us who want to watch John McCain run don't need a flat screen T.V., but only a rear view mirror.

Those of us who believe that accountabiliy, from the executive branch, is not a matter of political convenience, those of us who think that no presidential staffer, or appointee, has the right to defy a congressional subpoena, indeed, anyone who still believe in the Constitution, and recognizes the threat of this unitary executive's abuse of power must also acknowledge the need to send a signal to the world, and all future presidents, that we won't sit back and watch our democracy stolen by a bunch a crooks in Gucci cowboy boots.

We're going to take our country back--one article of impeachment at a time.