Leaders who lie - Have we had enough?

Last Monday, Dan Froomkin, who blogs for the Washington Post at White House Watch, included in his post a couple of paragraphs under Impeachment (Non) Watch: "The Project for Excellence in Journalism finds that during the week of Nov. 4 -9, Rep. Dennis Kucinich's introduction of a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney was 'barely a blip on the larger news-scape.'

"The story did not come close to cracking the top-10 stories in PEJ's overall News Coverage Index. But on talk radio, it was 'the top story with 20% of the total airtime.'"
The next day Public Affairs Books, publisher of former press secretary Scott McClellan’s forthcoming book, What Happened, released an excerpt:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself."

On November 22nd, Dave Lindorff, co-author of the excellent book, The Case for Impeachment posted, "Impeachment is Back on the Table": “With that one little statement…all excuses for not impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution while in office), have evaporated.

“There is no way that American democracy can continue to survive, even in its current truncated form, if the Congress continues to duck this issue and pretend that it has 'more important things to do,' as Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her retinue of leaders in the House have continued to claim for an entire year in control of the Congress.

“To keep impeachment ‘off the table,’ knowing that the president and vice president brazenly lied to the American people and to the Special Counsel's office about such a serious offense, is to make a mockery of the Constitution and the law."

I'll be watching the mainstream media to see if impeachment becomes more than a "blip on the larger news-scape" and if more than 20% of the talkers on radio shows "seize on [the] impeachment issue."

Even if the media continues to ignore impeachment, the former press secretary's disclosure is so significant that those of us who support H. Res 799 can urge members of the House Judiciary Committee to subpoena Scott McClellan and begin the impeachment investigation immediately. I highly recommend you go to Chris Borland’s Action Plan: Cheney Impeachment Resolution for contact information for selected House Judiciary Committee members.

(graphs: Project for Excellence in Journalism)