Speaker Pelosi, start impeachment hearings NOW

Madam Speaker,

The GAO, Congressional and Senate investigative committees, legal scholars from across the American political spectrum, public servants and respected military officers, private journalists, writers, bloggers and filmmakers, the broadcast and print media have all exposed the President and Vice Presidents knowing and willing engagement in the continual and systematic violation of our Constitution, under the guise of executive privilege and national security and in open defiance of Congress. From the 2000 election to the falsification of Iran's nuclear capabilities, the administration has been committing violations that are deemed well within the criteria of high crimes and misdemeanors and well outside any acceptable limit or practice consistent with a free and Democratic country. Without impeachment the gross abuse of power and subversion of our system of checks and balances will stand as precedent, conferring upon all future US Presidents the status and rights of a monarch.

The Constitution expressly calls for the removal from office, through impeachment, of a President and Vice President who commit high crimes and misdemeanors; it is mandatory, not elective. Your decision, therefore, to take impeachment off the table, before even taking office as Speaker, was seen as a blatant partisan move and cost the Democratic led Congress any respect they may have garnered as well as their ability to rein in Bushs ongoing unitary power grab. The recent revelations of your complicity, as far back as 2002, in violating the Constitution by sanctioning the Presidents illegal use of torture as an interrogation technique does nothing to assuage our concern or answer the questions your actions, or lack thereof, raised about your integrity and moral standing -- rather it allows us to consider self-interest influencing your decisions as well.

One would think the overwhelming evidence of Bush and Cheneys high crimes and misdemeanors and your sworn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States would be more than enough to compel you to put impeachment back on the table; it has not. When intelligent, educated and scholarly people begin to forecast the downfall of our Democracy, which for over 200 years has served as an inspiration and beacon for the world, it is incumbent upon our elected public servants to put partisanship and self interest away and act in the best interest of the country. Speaker Pelosi, please put everything else aside and do what is right, what you are honor bound to do; sound a clarion call in the House for the immediate start of impeachment hearings and help reshape the future of our country.

How tragic, if what was remembered as the death knell of our great Democracy and your legacy, Speaker Pelosi, was your partisan and personal misuse of your office in rendering a decision not to implement the Constitutional remedy of impeachment.