Bush has absolutely no traction speaking against the Russian incursion into Georgia. He threw away any legitimacy in speaking for the free world against aggression when he and Cheney invaded Iraq. Aggressive acts are commonplace for the Bush administration: aggression against other nations, aggression against the concept of co-equal branches of his own government, i.e. aggression against the Constitution, and aggression against the courts and the people. The transgressions of the Bush-Cheney administration have left their marks upon all of these, and upon the families of more than 4,100 dead American soldiers, and rising, and untold hundreds of thousands of others.

Bush and Cheney have created and left for the next president and the American people as difficult a world and domestic stage to navigate as has ever confronted any new administration in America’s relatively short history, and the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress, who to this day continue to shirk their constitutional oversight responsibilities, will remain wholly responsible for every failure and consequence of tragedy that is traced to be a repercussion of their tainted regime. Those repercussions could domino for decades, or longer, and whomever the president is, there will be cause for the finger pointed to the past (and at self, if McCain), consequences for which the sign over the door to any Bush library should remind: The blame stops here.

Consider only half of what is known of the acts of Bush and Cheney, of their administration, and the attendant consequences of its many abuses, and compare those against any others to hold their high offices who faced impeachment, and it is immediately apparent that impeachment for them becomes mandatory if historical precedent, the rule of law, and the principles of Democracy are to be retained as American ethics and standards.

Impeachment will challenge and charge the men who were contentiously entrusted with the power and prerogatives of the offices of President and Vice President of the United States, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, who, in collusion and contrary to their oaths to uphold and defend that Constitution, side-stepped it and diluted it by authorizing torture, kidnapping, political corruption of Justice, treasonous war, by support of dictators destroying and threatening other democracies (Pakistan, Georgia) contrary to the national interest, by failure to fully prosecute America’s attackers (al Qaeda in Afghanistan), by conducting operations against the people (illegal wiretaps), programs set above the law and the Constitution, by the creation of a criminal, murderous, unaccountable mercenary army (Blackwater), all unconstitutional acts of impunity and arrogance, subordinating the national interest and the welfare of the people for special-interest goals and profit, and further, diminishing and besmirching the authority of the courts, usurping the lawful bills of Congress (unconstitutional signing statements; refusing to recognize constitutional, congressional war-power directives); failing to uphold the laws of federal jurisdiction (illegal immigration/employment practices; drug trafficking; human smuggling/slavery), properly administer the national disaster-response resources (Katrina), leaving the states open, unaided victims to an onslaught of crime and disaster; and by twisting the vesting of government authority to be incarnate, and the actions of the People’s government, administered by them, to be solely according to their will and the religious belief and vision of George Bush, regardless of and contrary to the will of the People and their collective voice, expressed through constitutional vote and their elected, legislative representatives, the consequences of which have been the unwarranted death of more than 4,100 U.S. soldiers and the maiming of tens of thousands more, lives neither lost nor damaged in the interest of national security, and compounded by the deaths and maiming of tens upon tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of innocent foreign nationals, not guilty of harm or threat against the national-security interests of the United States, further eroding national security through incitement of foreign nationals to act against the U.S., and diminishing of the military state of readiness, including the destruction of government property, and world-wide erosion of U.S. national integrity.

In the history of this nation, there have never been any to hold the offices more deserving of impeachment than Bush and Cheney, which would condemn them and their acts as wrong, not representative of America, and reinforce for future officials what they cannot do, and in so doing, impeachment would allow Americans to face the world again without shame and guilt, having made right a great, but nonetheless enduring and unmitigable wrong. America’s world standing and historical legacy must be sharply delineated from that of Bush and Cheney’s, a paramount reason that impeachment is both necessary and justified. Yet, although impeachment is not sufficient recourse for justice in the face of such magnitude of crimes perpetrated upon the nation and the world, impeachment can help to ensure there will never be the likes of Bush or Cheney to again darken, with their colluded, corrupting shadow, a flag that once flew proudly in the light of day and right, and which will not see that light again until their stain is finally removed from the People’s government.