Independence

Since I read the news last night about President Bush's commutation of the 30-month sentence levied by a jury on I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, I have been literally consumed by anger. I wanted so desperately to get my feelings on this matter out to you. I haven't been able to think of the words.

Keith Olbermann did.

Read every word that he wrote and spoke on tonight's "Countdown" on MSNBC. Then read it again. Then search for it on YouTube and watch it. The visceral anger in both Olbermann's words and the tenor of his voice give even greater depth to his words. Here is a man who stands up. Here is a man, quoting from a lexicon of Americana so broad and deep as to include James Madison and John Wayne and who steadfastly and passionately demands of the President of the United States to come to the same conclusion many of us already have, that it is time for him to go. Here stands a patriot, a man who loves his country so deeply that he is nearly brought to tears by the actions of a government with utter distaste for the people they are meant to govern.

Let me be clear. I stand with Keith Olbermann. I stand with every word he spoke and with the power of his voice like a clarion call crying out in the wilderness. The time has come for patriotic Americans to demand better of the government in whom a thin plurality of us have twice called to serve. What happened to Scooter Libby was not a miscarriage of justice, it was the complete undoing of justice in America. We are barely thirty years from Watergate and we have allowed ourselves to be duped again by mad charlatans who crave only power, nothing more and nothing less. This country needs more brave men and women to proclaim that they are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

They must no longer be allowed to question my patriotism, my commitment to this grand idea of America, simply because we disagree. What kind of arrogance is that? What kind of cowardice is that? And they must not be allowed to subvert the laws which hold this country together.

This president, this administration, and this government have failed to serve the American people. It is high time they consider their misdeeds. And if they will not, then the Congress must do what is right and begin drafting Articles of Impeachment against Messrs. Bush and Cheney.

Happy Independence Day.