http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/comme ... b/xp-98437


Impeach Bush?

Perry Keeton

Keeton, of Roanoke, is retired and a veteran.

In spite of all the candy-coated "bipartisan" rhetoric we are hearing from the Democrats about having no intent to impeach President Bush, you can bet that will be the top priority on their agenda once they ascend to power this month. It is as certain as the sun coming up. As well it should be. That's right, President George W. Bush should be impeached. This action should not, however, have anything to do with his actions in Iraq.

To impeach Bush for taking us into Iraq would imply the necessary impeachment of nearly every political leader in Washington, Democrat and Republican alike, who voted in favor of this action. If he lied to us, they lied to us. They based their decisions on the same intelligence Bush used, and they, across the aisle, made impassioned pleas to justify placing our troops in harm's way.

They all told us of the WMDs, of Saddam's quest for nuclear capability and of the impending threat to Western civilization. But now they all are saying that perhaps had they known then what we know now, they might not have voted for the action. That's like saying had you known the price of gas was going to go up, you wouldn't have bought the 10 miles-per-gallon vehicle you are driving.

But there is a clear and unmistakable justification for impeachment. Nearly every time Bush makes a speech, he is certain to point out that the most important job of the president is to protect the people of this country. In this regard he has failed just as much, if not more so, than the administrations preceding his.

With his do-nothing approach to stemming the flow of illegal immigration into this country, and with his desire to grant amnesty to the millions who have entered illegally, he has clearly failed in his sworn duty to protect the citizens of this country.

This country is under siege, being invaded by a sworn enemy with the stated intent of reclaiming territory they feel is still rightly theirs. They choose not to enter the country legally, as so many of our ancestors did. They choose not to assimilate into our culture. They have become an increasing burden on our health care and welfare systems, and are taught by their government how to manipulate these systems.

President Bush's justification for his sweeping amnesty proposal for the 12 million Mexican invaders currently in this country is "They do jobs Americans won't do." Tell that to the workers who recently lined up out the doors to take the jobs of illegals busted in identity theft raids at Swift Meatpacking Co. plants.

This exposes the lie of illegal immigration: that our economy needs illegal aliens. This is wrong. The price we pay in higher crime, payments for social services and law enforcement far outweighs any cheap labor from which we benefit. When Bush says illegals do the work Americans won't, that is a lie. The truth is, illegal aliens do the work Americans won't do for what the illegals are paid.

So let's impeach Bush. Not for Iraq, but for his failure to execute what he himself states is the most important job of the president.