"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total."

So spoke Barbara Jordan, a true hero, nearly 37 years ago, on July 25, 1974, during a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee debating the merits of the Articles of Impeachment against Richard Nixon -- for crimes that pale in severity and audacity compared to those that the current inhabitants of the White House have perpetrated. The rest of her speech constituted nothing short of a tour-de-force of persuasive, scholarly, emotional, and stirring rhetoric that steeled a nation to stand up and fight for the Constitution.

(Cross-posted at dKos)
We obviously lack such leaders today in the halls of our Congress. The question of why that is, is an interesting one -- but one that we unfortunately don't have time to ponder. While some of them may, from time to time, talk a good talk, or even occasionally walk a good walk, the fact is that there appears to be no one that can galvanize, cajole, shake, and then force what it is necessary upon a recalcitrant body -- there aren't enough agitators around. So it is up to us.

Meteor Blades today posted on the front page another searing piece of rhetoric from another hero that spoke from the soul about agitating in defense of the Constitution and the ideas that informed the creation of this Republic, however imperfect the initial implementation of those ideas was. It sometimes fills me with despair to see those types of speeches, because it reminds me of the mediocrity and venality that follows in those footsteps. But we have to be reminded of those heroes -- Franklin, Paine, Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Marshall, Douglass, Lincoln, Roosevelt (Theodore, Eleanor, Franklin), King, Jordan -- else we'll forget what it is that's worth fighting for in all this.

In the past few days, I have observed people whose voices I respect very much, and from whom I have learned so much from over these past years, question whether impeachment is the proper or prudent course of action. And with all deference and humility I say, it is the necessary course of action, the only course of action left that might stop and perhaps even undo the real damage being done to our Republic and our Constitution, whatever the consequences of a failed impeachment or an acquittal in the Senate may be.

A President, his Vice President, his former Counselor (who is now, unbelievably, the chief law enforcement officer in the land), and their aides have conspired and continue to conspire to obstruct justice to prevent their unlawful actions from being known from the populace at large.

Lest we not forget, at the heart of the Plame outing and subsequent investigation/prosecution is the fact that all the major players in the Offices of the President and the Vice President, including the President and Vice President themselves, at the very least created a massive conspiracy to deceive the public -- through the organs of the press that they masterfully played -- about the motives and veracity of the one public official that tried to the tell the truth about the rationale that was used to "sell a war" under false pretenses. And then, when it was determined that their conspiracy unwittingly involved the breaking of numerous laws and executive orders, this group of conspirators ably used the levers of power and the institutions of the government to run out the clock and prevent the truth of the matter from being aired before We, the People, could utilize the only accountability mechanism available currently under our Constitution -- the re-election contest of the chief executive. Finally, now, almost four years later, when the wheels of justice and the actions of a few noble and patriotic actors have finally allowed some justice to be meted out, with the possibility of the conspiracy being further uncovered by the leverage gained against one of the bad actors in this tragedy, the President -- charged under the Constitution with seeing that the laws be faithfully executed -- performs the one deed that will prevent any further truth from emanating from this inquiry and simultaneously covers the tracks of his and his administration's crimes from We, the People, forever.

This is shocking lawlessness and malevolence towards the Constitution and this Republic, and it cannot be allowed. While they have succeeded, so far, in throwing sand in the face of the public and using the elitist bootlickers of the mainstream media to convince the public that no crimes were committed, this case can and must be made -- there has never been a more criminal conspiracy ever concocted that was more successfully and maliciously run from the Office of the President. When this case is successfully made to the People, this Administration will fall.

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I am writing this diary because I can't stomach this subversion any more -- it is making me crazy and enraged, and I need to act. Four weeks from today, I'll be landing in Chicago for my first YearlyKos. What I want to do is meet up with those people that are of like mind, and come up with a strategy to stand up for the Constitution. What we need is an action plan to spur change before Labor Day, to see who is on our side, and then to act.

I have some ideas of how this might work, but what we really need to start with is by assembling the case against these criminals as tightly and in as scholarly a fashion as Barbara Jordan did in her speech in 1974 http://www.americanr... and as forcefully as Patrick Fitzgerald did to convict Lewis Libby. The ammunition is on our side -- the Federalist Papers, the State Ratification Conventions, the words of Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Marshall, and Lincoln, and the actions of the Congress in 1974. Moreover, the netroots truth-seekers like Marcy Wheeler, Josh Marshall, Glenn Greenwald, and numerous others have pretty much laid the facts of the case bare. What is needed is to weave the threads from all of these sources together, and then make the case to the American people using every communication means available, to get around the filter of the establishment media.

As we go about assembling this case, we need to find out who, truly, is on our side in this inquest. Many Democrats may not be -- at least at first. But there is no reason -- including the possibility of losing a few Congressional seats in 2008 to Republicans in a few districts we otherwise might not -- to fail to defend the Constitution. We need to start with those Representatives and Senators that this community helped elect last year and enlist them in this cause, make sure that they stand with us. I think they will. And then we move on from there. At some point, perhaps some real leaders inside the halls on Congress will remind us of Barbara Jordan in 1974. And those that will not stand with us in defense of the Constitution need to understand that we will actively work to make sure that they will no longer be able to participate in the destruction of the Constitution after January, 2009.

I am admittedly new at this here at dKos/RK. I have commented and interacted from time to time, but mostly lurked and read and ruminated. There's no more time left for that. I hope some dKos/RK veterans and lurkers alike will extend a hand and join me in this endeavor -- I sure as hell can't do it alone. Just for a little bit more info about me, I knocked on some doors, phonebanked, etc., for Jim Webb last year (I live in Alexandria, Va.), and I work in the Patent Office (USPTO) as a Patent Examiner. Any Virginians interested in meeting up to discuss ideas, especially those in the Brigades and Senator Webb's grassroots supporters, I'd be most happy to hear from you. Beyond this crusade, whatever grassroots energy we assemble right now I'd like to see used as a springboard to invigorate Congressional campaigns next year, as nothing is more important than reshaping our Congress -- they hold alot of the blame for why things got this bad.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. I'd love to hear from those interested -- I'll check the comments, and feel free to email me at dkosron@gmail.com, which I created for this purpose. I'll compose another diary this weekend after I see how much initial interest this garners and start a new conversation on what we want to accomplish between now and YKos.

Thanks for reading.

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