Feature: Crossroads

It’s Treason: Dems Stay Silent on Bush White House Crimes
By Richard W. Behan, AlterNet. Posted November 16, 2007.

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
--Article III, Section 3, United States Constitution (emphasis added)
The mainstream Democrats -- represented, say, by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Christopher Dodd -- have not levied war against the United States. Their treason lies instead in committing the second offense: They adhere to enemies of the country, giving them aid and comfort.
The enemies are President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. Like no other president and vice president in history, these men attacked their country.
It was not our geography George Bush and Richard Cheney invaded. Instead they abandoned and subverted the bedrock institution of our constitutional democracy: the rule of law. By word and deed, Mr. Bush repeatedly and arrogantly sets himself above the law, claiming obedience to be a matter of presidential choice. Mr. Cheney orchestrates, coaches, applauds and iterates.
This cannot stand if the country we know and cherish is to survive. George Bush and Richard Cheney are literally enemies of the state; long before now and by any measure of constitutional justice, they should have been impeached and removed from office.
Abjectly, continuously and stubbornly refusing to hold them accountable, however, the mainstream Democrats adhere to this criminal president and vice president: Nothing they have asked for has been denied, no barriers placed in their way. That is giving them aid and comfort, and that is treason. George Bush and Richard Cheney took the country to war illegally, with a deliberate, carefully designed and executed package of fear-mongering propaganda: lies, distortions and deceptions. No informed citizen entertains the slightest doubt about this.
Lying to the people and the Congress was the most despicable violation of the rule of law by Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, but many more followed: torturing prisoners, denying habeas corpus, spying on U.S. citizens, nullifying new laws with "signing statements" and so on and on. The litany of impeachable offenses is long and painful, but the so-called "War on Terror," these men insist, makes all of it acceptable, even necessary.