Imagine:

If a Democratic president had lied to Congress and to the American people in order to launch an unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq, would he be impeached?

If a Democratic president had ordered a domestic wiretapping on American citizens without court authorization, would he be impeached?

If a Democratic president had approved torture of detainees and suspended the right of habeas corpus by holding American citizens without charges, would he be impeached?

If a Democratic president had ignored the faithful execution of the laws of the United States, breaking the oath of office by attaching signing statements to bills passed by Congress, would he be impeached?

If a Democratic president had abused his power, undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances, would he be impeached?

If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, he would remind us that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

But today what matters in America is who will become the next president.

Republicans, united in their denial of any wrongdoing (worthy of impeachment) from George W. Bush and Democrats, united in their goal to take back the White House, refuse, no matter what (at the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel) to speak about accountability. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pretends she has not received thousands of petitions and refuses to bring back on the table the issue of impeachment she promised prior to becoming speaker.

John Nirenberg who marched in my name from Faneuil Hall, Mass., to Washington, D.C. (http://www.marchinmyname.org/), could not be clearer in his letter to Ms. Pelosi when he wrote, “We want history to know that we were not asleep during this administration’s assault on our Constitution, that we stood up against what are unquestionably their ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ against the dismantling of the only contract between the people and our government. We want our children to know that when the Constitution was at risk, we stood up together in its defense.”

If our present president were a Democrat, he would have been impeached a long time ago. And this is why America cannot move forward, no matter what the candidates want us to believe. Impeachment is not about partisanship but for the good of the Republic and the preservation of our Constitution.

MONIQUE FRUGIER

Ardmore