An Alternative to Impeachment: Transitional Justice for the Bush-ites
The case for beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney is as simple and unarguable as the case against: It is that the crimes, misdemeanors and constitutional violations of the administration – even those it has admitted or made feeble efforts to deny or disprove – vastly exceed those for which President Clinton was impeached nine years ago (here is where the comparison to a consensual act of oral sex is usually invoked) and quite probably equal or exceed those for which the House Judiciary Committee passed articles of impeachment, with support from seven of the committee's 17 Republicans, against President Nixon in 1974.
The case against impeachment (as made by Todd Gitlin and Michael Tomasky) is simply that it would be futile – given that there aren't 67 votes to impeach in the Senate and there aren't going to be -- and, for that reason, it would appear to be more partisan showmanship, a mirror image of the Clinton impeachment. And even if it succeeded, we would then have President Cheney, and if Cheney (who perhaps should be the first to go) were removed from office, then perhaps we would have a few months of President Pelosi, which would be fine but by that time it would be mid- or late 2008 and only a few months would remain anyway.
For me, the case against trumps the case for impeachment. We've got so much work to do to get this country back on the right track. Don't divert all the energy into a pointless exercise.
But as Josh Marshall pointed out, the behavior of the Attorney General before the Senate Judiciary Committee week before last – in which he might as well have put his cowboy boots up on the witness table, lit a cigar (or a joint) and answered every question with a lackadaisically upraised middle finger – changes everything. If the conduct of the administration – including torture, deception in the run-up to the Iraq War, and overt politicization of every government agency -- and the literal contempt for the other elected branch of government as it attempts to understand that conduct -- is allowed to stand, it will be in effect an unspoken constitutional change. The extreme winner-take-all approach to politics will become the norm.
The administration's genius – Rove's and Cheney's, I suspect -- has been a realization that previous right-wing administrations held themselves back out of a sense of shame or of the way things are done. As Thomas B. Edsall wrote in Building Red America, "the ability to act without shame is a powerful political weapon." A few years ago, I argued that the administration had realized that a bill that passed 218 votes in the House was just as much the law as one that passed with 350, and any compromises they made to achieve bipartisan consensus would be like leaving money on the table. And I believe they took the same approach to elections, understanding that merely holding the power of the presidency was sufficient – if one was willing to use it – and that winning reelection with a Reagan-esque mandate didn't confer much greater power than winning with 51%, as long as you were willing to exercise that power.
Now that strategy has been reduced to its minimalist essence: We have all the power we need to do whatever the hell we want, the administration says in effect, unless and until you can come up with 67 Senators to convict (which means 16 Republicans plus our good friend Joe Lieberman). That's why it is the administration's supporters who are most eager to raise the idea of impeachment – bring it on!
And if that approach to power is allowed to stand unchallenged, it will become normal and accepted. The idea that one can govern this way is like Straussian secret knowledge: it should remain secret. As Josh put it, "If [Gonzales's contempt] is allowed to continue, the defiance will congeal into precedent. And the whole structure of our system of government will be permanently changed."
Rather than a constitutional crisis, it will become, to use the great legal scholar Bruce Ackerman's phrase, a "constitutional moment," in which the basic understandings about how American government works are rewritten, not by formal amendment, but by the informal process of consent to the new order. I don't care whether the next five presidents are Democrats, Republicans, Naderites or Anarcho-syndicalists: I don't want them to govern this way.
Entertaining such thoughts, it seems hugely irresponsible to take the tool of impeachment off the table. If impeachment is the only means by which the Bush-Cheney-Gonzales administration can be held accountable for its actions, then why let some squeamishness about how it will be perceived hold anyone back?
And yet, if the point is to make sure that the conduct of the last seven years never happens again, then why is impeachment the right tool? Impeachment is a means of removing an elected individual from office, a way to punish those individuals. It sets no precedent, establishes no standard in itself.
And as much as I might want to see Bush, Cheney and Gonzales spend their last decades in a federal prison or perhaps on the island of St. Helena, or renditioned to a lovely Romanian prison lacking even a golf course, none of those things are going to happen. Impeached or not, all three will live out their disgraceful lives sitting on boards and gracing bipartisan commissions and collecting royalties on unrevealing books that other people will write.
And, so be it. It is the actions, not the individuals, which must be banished from American politics forever: the secrecy, the raw exercise of executive power, the torture and domestic surveillance, the misuse of executive power to entrench partisan control, and the deceit. How do we restore the rule of law?
Consider, as an alternative to impeachment, and a means of reestablishing the lines of what just isn't done, a process modeled on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in post-Apartheid South Africa. Efforts of this kind fall under the label, "transitional justice," described by the U.S. Institute of Peace as a way for "emerging democracies to reckon with the abuses of past regimes." This may be an inflammatory metaphor, and of course ours is not an emerging but a renewed democracy, and the abuses are not the massive internal human rights violations or even genocides that have characterized the "past regimes" in most of the countries that have created such commissions. But nonetheless, these past six years have been a dark, obscure and singular episode in our history, and we need to understand the truth of it so that it will not be repeated or, worse, normalized.
A post-Bush Truth Commission would have as its goal to discover as much as possible about the full range of conduct during the recent period, not only violations of law but other practices that had the effect of impeding democracy, and making recommendations about preventing them in the future, which might include everything from constitutional amendment to changes in oversight to suggestions for the press. The idea would be to find the boundaries within which democracy can work – lines which should not be crossed. The commission would not be empowered to indict anybody, but should be delegated subpoena power (this is legally complicated) along with a limited power to grant immunity to witnesses, as well as a complete commitment of cooperation from the next administration.
As for members of the commission, the one thing I know is they should not be former or current elected officials or party apparatchiks. Elected officials all bear some responsibility, by commission or inaction for the recent era. And figures of the past -- the Bakers, Hamiltons, Doles and Mitchells -- have shown little understanding of just how dramatically things have changed. There should be some law professors, political scientists, historians, an economist, a journalist or two, and some community leaders – students and practitioners of democracy. They should have security clearances and should be able to devote at least half their time for a year to the work of the commission, and there should be a significant staff, with investigative experience, as well. In addition to diversity of race and gender, there should be at least as many 20-somethings as 70-somethings, because different generations have remarkably different perspectives of recent political history. And their hearings should be public, with witnesses that could include anyone affected by the Bush-era abuses, from people held without charges at Guantanamo to government scientists and former U.S. Attorneys fired for doing their jobs, to members of Congress denied information or misled in trying to do theirs.
Commissions have a decidedly mixed record in recent history. Often we turn things over to commissions that the political process can't or won't deal with, hoping that they'll be able to make decisions that elected officials can't. That rarely works except in special cases such as the 1990s base-closing commission. Often they're used as cover for decisions already made or to divert attention for a while, as in Bush's commission on pre-war intelligence. But in this case, the purpose of the commission would be both less and more. It would take the questions of the Bush-era abuses away from the political process for a while, so that Congress and the President can move forward undistracted on challenges such as ending the Iraq War and expanding health coverage.
The Commission can't begin tomorrow, of course. But a presidential candidate can propose it today. Congress can actually pass a resolution calling for it to begin in 2009 (such a resolution would not require Bush's signature), and perhaps a few Republicans looking for "transitional justice" of their own (reelection in 2008) might sign on to the resolution. By beginning the debate about a Transitional Justice commission now, about the scope of its mission and its goals, we might achieve many of the goals of impeachment without the downsides, and begin the process of drawing a line under this dark era.
I'm sorry. I have not seen anyone base their case for impeachment on this rationale (Perhaps as support). If that is the case for, it is easy to oppose it, right?
On edit: Impeachment is a truth commission.
August 9, 2007 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark,
You have identified the problem precisely. I have been trying to formulate this problem in my head for several weeks now and I haven't gotten quite as exactly as you have. Bush and Cheney operate on the assumption that the only accountability moment to which they are subject is the the Presidential election. That is why Bush stood before the press on November 8, 2004 and said that he had gained political capital through his election and was going to pursue his agenda. That is why he then preceded to push for Social Security privatization--a policy proposal that was not decisive in the election.
Unfortunately, they are right about this assumption. There is nothing in the constitution to restrain our president. Any restraint exercised by past presidents was based on a mere belief that it was important to be responsive and restrained. But that's just a belief. It's not real.
Look there is no way to restore the rule of law. Bush broke the system. A truth commission would be interesting, but it will always be considered partisan. It would a commission designed to figure out why the administration of one party was such a ridiculous failure, so out of step with our political traditions, and so destructive to our constitutional order. What greater attack could there be? You have the same problem as Anne-Marie Slaughter has in her recent calls for bipartisanship. You have to show us why the Republicans would go for this--how they could gain anything out of it--and why they simply wouldn't feel victimized by the whole affair.
There are two things that might make some real difference. The first is impeachment. Impeachment is punishment. It is a warning and a deterrent to future presidents. But it is unfortunately not feasible.
The second is constitutional amendments that explicitly limit the power of the presidency. These too aren't going to happen.
So, basically, we're fucked. The entire country is fucked. Our constitutional order does not exist anymore. Our 18th century constitution and it's 19th century repairs have finally failed.
August 9, 2007 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am even more concerned with curbing the next administration (be it Republican or Democrat). The executive and its bureaucracy will not easily relinquish all these newly acquired powers. A truth commission would go a long way, but as in South Africa, it would have to endowed with the legal capacity to mete out punishments. In essence, I think it would have to be sovereign on some level, outside and above normal constitutional practice. So I don't know. Perhaps a new 9/11 commission - with subpoena powers, and whose recommendations would have force of law?
[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!
August 9, 2007 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reece,
"There is nothing in the constitution to restrain our president. Look there is no way to restore the rule of law."
That is exactly what impeachment was created to do. Why is impeachment not the corrective? Is it just because Pelosi took it off the table? Since when can the Speaker reject a constitutional process? Is it because a conviction isn't assured? It isn't really needed to expose the crimes. Besides, when all of this administration's offenses are laid out in detail, what Republican is going to commit Hara-Kiri to defend it? Impeachment is only unfeasible if we accept that it is unfeasible.
August 9, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark --
You wrote: "the ability to act
without shame is a powerful political weapon."
I agree, and I think this administration needs to be shamed.
I just don't think a commission can or will
do it. A few very good, very brave journalists at major mainstream media outlets could do it.
I'm thinking of how Woodward and Bernstein shamed Nixon. They literally drove him out of office. Of course they had backing from their editor.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, or even the Wall Street Journal could do this again. Perhaps the WSJ is in the best position because they have more credibility among moderates, and still have quite a few very good investigative reporters.
From Murdoch's point of view, this would sell
newspapers. (If it doesn't work out, he could
always fire the reporters and editors involved.)
At the times, people like Frank Rich and Paul
Krugman need to get together and make the argument to their editors at the Times.
Are their enough fearless reporters and editors left in mainstream American journalism for a few of the best to do this? I don't know.
But it would be amazing if they did.
August 9, 2007 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
For maybe two years I've been preaching the idea that the Bush gang must pay dearly for their transgressions or a precedent will be set for an Imperial Presidency. Either Impeach him or start cutting funding to various Departments.
The chances of creating a post Bush Truth Commission, or a Transitional Justice Commission are about as good as getting a Democracy in Iraq that enjoys permanent peace and prosperity.
We already have the tools for Impeachment, we don't need to create anything. Whether or not Bush is kicked out of office by an Impeachment is secondary as Impeachment itself is punishment, something no President, even Bush, wants to have on his record.
Mark, I'd support your idea if it came to a vote, but it will never happen.
I can see the authoritarian President elect Giuliani now, rubbing his hands as he awaits January 20 so he can turn and say to the Nation, Congress and the Courts; "You had your chance to rein in the Presidency when Bush was President, and since you didn't, well, I'm taking for myself the same power and authority.....and, I may even expand on it.
We're at a crossroads; do we wish to have the Constitution amended to increase the power of the President exponentially,
by having this unwritten amendment take place not by Congressional action, but by Congressional INaction?
If Bush isn't made to pay before he leaves office the precedent will have been set.
August 9, 2007 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a wonderful idea if we lived in an ideal world. Unfortunately, if we lived in an ideal world, we wouldn't need it. In the world we live in, this is a joke. Nobody will be compelled to tell the truth without the threat of criminal liability and motivation to insulate themselves.
August 9, 2007 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every Republican is going to commit hari-kari to defend it, and so will a few Democrats. For impeachment to be effective, you have to get a conviction. There can't simply be a recognition of the problems. There must be a repudiation of the actions and policies.
Let me also just say that, to the extent that South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission worked, it worked because both sides had something to gain. The perpetrators were offered amnesty in return for full and complete accountings of their crimes. If we set up a commission here, there would be essentially no incentive for the perpetrators to come forward and tell their story. The Republicans would have nothing to gain.
They refuse to make mistakes.
They think history will vindicate them.
They believe that they are right.
August 9, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with the first commenter. We have a formal process that was written into the Constitution to deal with breaches of the Constitution. We should use it. A formal impeachment investigation, followed by the judgement of the House, is the best official way of recording the wrongdoing and excesses of this regime. If the rendering of that judgement, and the subsequent trial in the Senate do not render the requisite number of votes to convict in this Congress, hold the vote until after the next Congress convenes, when there may well be 67 votes to convict.
Remember, impeachment and conviction do not have as their sole remedy removal from office. Go to your copy of the Constitution and read Article I, Section 3:
No one can argue that there is no point to impeachment other than removal from office, given the available penalty of "disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States" - that is being held accountable, in spades, and is well worth doing even after they've left office.
Congress' power to compel testimony and production of evidence during the impeachment investigation can also provide the basis for post-conviction criminal proceedings or civil litigation by injured parties.
"Bring it on," indeed!
David Finley
August 9, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark, your mistake, and the mistake others make, is to call a conviction in the senate an impeachment. It isn't. Impeachment is like an indictment, one that the House votes, normally based on a thorough and public investigation that makes everyone aware of why the process is occurring. If you forget, the Republicans refused to go thru such an investigation when they impeached Clinton. Instead, they kept referring to all of the damning evidence held in a back room somewhere, but not made public. The House hearing was nothing more than a political argument, with the Republicans denouncing Clinton, and the Democrats demanding to be told what the evidence supporting the charges was.
An impeachment done correctly, as the near impeachment of Nixon was done, is exactly the same as the truth and reconciliation commission you propose. It has the added advantage of being in accordance with the constitution.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 9, 2007 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry to have to be so blunt, but if you think it's impossible to get 67 votes for impeachment, you should KNOW it's a RIDICULOUS IDEA that such a commission could ever pass Congress AND A PRESIDENTIAL VETO. Apologies for *shouting* but it's the truth. Really, I regret having to be so blunt, because I know you have put a lot of thought into this.
Impeachment may not be possible but building the structure of a legal case IS POSSIBLE. Taking the steps already being taken, to hold people in contempt, is precisely a concrete action to say "no further". There are a lot of sword-thrusts in the fog, that miss their targets, but they establish this Congress as not 'going along'. If the President can rule with a 'mandate' of 50% +1, then Congress can resist Bush's odious precedent's with 50%+1 votes that can't override a veto, but establish the fact that Congress does not go along with him.
We can also pursue a "people's truth commission" on the side, to bring forth the evidence of wrongdoing and make a quasi-legal case against the administration, staffed as you say with a stellar group of non-apparatchiks. But don't hope for a commission with subpeona power, if Congress can't even get their subpeonas enforced; please, be real.
August 9, 2007 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ultimately, the only way the constitution can be saved is if the American people in overwhelming numbers demand it be saved. So far I see no sign of that happening. I fear most Americans have only a vague idea what the constitution is, never mind what it says. Really, there isn't much hope. When asked what kind of government had been created by the constitution, Benjamin Franklin famously answered "A republic, if you can keep it." Ultimately, as Franklin understood, it's up to us, the people, to keep our republic a republic. No legal or political process can do it for us. Unfortunately, I fear we've reached a point in history, at which keeping our republic may now be beyond our ability--or even, for the majority, beyond our desire.
August 9, 2007 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You write: "And as much as I might want to see Bush, Cheney and Gonzales spend their last decades in a federal prison or perhaps on the island of St. Helena, or renditioned to a lovely Romanian prison lacking even a golf course, none of those things are going to happen."
Perhaps. Perhaps Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez (and their minions) will not be prosecuted for their crimes. But this is a proposition that should not be dismissed before it is even considered. There is no reason that Bush administration officials cannot, or should not, be prosecuted by a special prosecutor appointed by the next President. The crimes that they have committed have statutes of limitations that are sufficiently long.
Our goal should be accountability. And no options for achieving accountability should be taken off the table prematurely.
August 9, 2007 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
What does it take to be a genocide? This administration unleashed armageddon on the Iraqis. Even if there were evidence that Saddam had financed the 9/11 hijackers, would that somehow balance the death, destruction and displacment the Iraqi people have suffered since Bush invaded their nation?
I think that Bush et al ARE guilty of genocide. By any rational understanding of the term, they have.
From Wikipedia:
If we haven't deliberately brought about genocide in Iraq, then no such thing exists anywhere.
Jake
August 9, 2007 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is an excellent idea, and one that in hindsight seems obvious. Please pass it along to the candidate[s] of your choice. When 2008 comes, we will need to walk the line between past and future, and with a commission of this sort we will be able to learn from and prosecute the crimes of the past while still being able to attend to the issues of tomorrow.
August 9, 2007 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for pointing out the difference between impeachment and removal from office (by the Senate). As Bruce Fein and others have pointed out, impeachment is the cure, not the crisis. Democrats, fearful of confrontation and possible voter blowback, have taken impeachment off the table as being time consuming, non productive, and impossible to get the votes in the Senate. These excuses certainly did not prevent the Republicans in the 90's. I think we underestimate the need for catharsis in this country; we've been divided in ugly and cynical ways, we've lost our standing as a legitimate arbiter and as a symbol of fairness and decency. If I'm not mistaken, impeachment need not be started in the House. Rather, municipalities or is it just state legislatures can demand it. Please comment.
August 9, 2007 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if the Republicans hold on to the White House and/or reasonable numbers in Congress, what then? An offshore Truth Commission? Those arguing against impeachment are, it seems to me, gambling EVERYTHING on big Democratic gains in 2008. Best not be wrong.
And, for the record, impeachment -- not a Truth Commission -- is the remedy prescribed by the Constitution. It's good to see it is finally being openly discussed, not so good to see otherwise principled people rule it out as impractical or impossible -- a self-fulfilling prophecy.
August 9, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't count your chickens before they hatch. This rosy little scenario presumes the current cabal will be cast from all influence and/or that their successors will be so honorable they will voluntarily cede a measure of their inherited authority.
August 9, 2007 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sept. 15, Washington, DC. Let's at least go down fighting!
August 9, 2007 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I share your goal of wanting to make clear that this administration has engaged in conduct that is far beyond the pale, and I am open to some alternative to impeachment to accomplish this, but I cannot get excited about this "truth commission" idea.
For one thing, you have banished from consideration for membership on the commission the very people who have the best knowledge of the inner workings of politics -- actual politicians. Surely we could find enough well-respected former officeholders with a reputation for being able to set aside partisan interests for the good of the country as a whole to constitute a portion of such a commission. Legal scholars and historians are fine, but I would also want to have people at the table who knew very well how polticians behaved behind closed doors.
For the other, there have been so many blatant lies coming out of this administration that I no longer have any faith in the willingness of any member of it to tell the full and unvarnished truth. They will lie just as blatantly to a truth commission as they have to Congress, to Fitzgerald's grand jury, to the American people, to the UN, to the whole world.
I'm close to agreeing with Reece and concluding that there really may be no way to restore the rule of law, that Bush has broken it for good, or at least as long as there are people in the White House who have no shame, and have cohorts enough in Congress willing to place short-term party or personal interests over patriotic duty.
Unless Congress, acting as an institution instead of a collection of opposing factions, is willing to step up to its Constitutional duty and impeach presidents who ignore legal and Constitutional constraints; and unless we as voters are willing to hold our representatives' feet to the fire and let them know that we consider this a duty above all other duties, we are, indeed, fucked.
Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?
A republic, madam, if you can keep it.
August 9, 2007 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
If something isn't done to draw a line beyond which Bush/Chaney can't cross, and it isn't done before they leave office, then why is everyone assuming that they will just docilely leave office on January 20, 2009? What in the last 6 1/2 years would suggest that they will?
There has to be a reason that so many GOPers have sworn a blood oath to Bush and are following him to what looks very like electoral suicide. Is there a Plan B?
It is for this reason that I think the Dem strategy of just keeeping their heads down and waiting for victory in November, 2008 is beginning to look at least as naive as saying that articles of impeachment should be brought against Bush and Cheney, or at the very least Alberto Gonzales. The increased investigative powers that would bring can help find the truth about at least some of the transgressions, and find the responsible parties. Right now Congress isn't doing their assigned oversight job; they are just playing at it.
August 9, 2007 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think what Mark and others discouraging impeachment are trying to say is, "Don't upset the apple cart. If everything goes according to plan, our guys will have all the power and they'll be nice."
Too many moving parts here, folks , prone to breakdown.
August 9, 2007 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly!
August 9, 2007 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
President Pelosi. IF ONLY!!!!
KAREN
August 9, 2007 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The failure of our elected representatives to do their jobs, uphold their oaths of office, and protect our Constitution should not be excused but met by the angry resistance of the citizenry. Instead, we're counting how many dollars Obama or Hillary raised from this constituency or that.
We have turned government into a spectator sport, but worse yet we ignore the actual games and focus on next year's draft choices.
That's what perrenial losers do.
August 9, 2007 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
LET THE CONGRESS SHOW US IT CAN DO SOMETHING - and shame them.
Let the States, on our behalf, sue for redress and force Constitutional Compliance.
And let's have Truth and Reconciliation as well: I volunteer my services (as a regular citizen) for such a Commission!
I would do it as a public service.
Where do I report?
August 9, 2007 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is our reluctance to impeach a function of the numbers in Congress (what were the numbers when Nixon resigned?) or is it really our own complacency? After all, we would need to work to persuade our fellow citizens and elected "representatives" that what Bush and his cabal has done is wrong. Maybe we don't really believe it ourselves. We sure seem ready enough to overlook it all.
August 9, 2007 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm thinking of how Woodward and Bernstein shamed Nixon. They literally drove him out of office.
Well; they did have some help: Hon. John Sirica, Sen. Sam Ervin, Atty. Sam Dash, Richardson, Ruckleshaus, Archibald Cox, Leon Jaworski, Rep. Peter Rodino --- even Rep. Barbara Jordan.
August 9, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is an unstated assumption behind this impeachment/non-impeachment/truth commission discussion: that we can just muddle through until the Bush administration becomes history in January 2009. This is an extremely dangerous assumption that really gives the Bush administration the big victory before even beginning the struggle against it.
If, between now and the election, or between now and January 2009, the Bush administration manages to attack Iran, or 'suffers' (the accurate word would be 'enjoys') a major terrorist attack on the US, or manages some other major crisis, the administration could try to continue in power through some maneuver, such as 'state of emergency,' or 'martial law' or whatever. Guiliani tried to do this when his term expired after 9/11, so the idea isn't at all far-fetched.
The only way we can defeat the Bush administration is to maintain maximum pressure against it, maximum exposure, to keep the American people as politically active against the administration as possible. Impeachment would be a good way--regardless of whether Bush/Cheyney were actually impeached in time. Denying funding is a good way. Refusing to cooperate with the administration on most issues would be good. Just keep up the attacks.
And keep up the attacks on the hypocritical senators and representatives who use endless excuses to avoid intensifying the pressure on the administration. They are Bush's facilitators every bit as much as his open supporters, and must be exposed as such.
Peter Miller
August 9, 2007 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plan B? There is no Plan B. Plan A is that Hitler could run as a Republican in 2008 and get 45% of the vote. They only need 6%, and they'll do anything to get it.
And Congress, as we can now plainly see, has made itself irrelevant.
It's not just Bush that needs a slap-down, it's the institution of the presidency. The only one way to do that is for Congress to fire the President.
August 9, 2007 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The people" are our elected representives. That the constitution treats the legislative branch before the executive is significant. The people's proxies make the laws, the executive carries them out. The President is commander in chief of the military, not of the country. Congress holds the responsibility to maintain our democracy. George Bush is a usurper - if only for his use of signing statements. He lies to our county about the rationale for the Iraq war. He uses the Justice Department as a political weapon, trying to disenfranchise about half the county from impartial justice and fair elections. Bush should be impeached. If Republicans in Congress don't recognize his crimes, they can be held responsible at the next election.
Conrad Skinner
August 9, 2007 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Schmitt writes:
> For me, the case against trumps the case for impeachment. We've got so much work to do to get this country back on the right track. Don't divert all the energy into a pointless exercise.
With all due respect, I'd like to disagree with that. The Democrats are capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time; meaning they can have investigations into impeachment and pass meaningful legislation at the same time.
Case in point: During the 93rd Congress (which conducted investigations into Nixon's impeachment) they passed the War Powers Act, the Endangered Species Act, established the EPA, passed the Fair Labor Standards Amendment, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and many">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_legislation#93rd_United_States_Congress>many many more.
Just because impeachment hearings occur when legislation needs to be passed doesn't mean nothing won't get done, as the 93rd Congress has demonstrated so well.
August 9, 2007 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very good point. We really need impeachment so we'll know who is worthy in 2008, and who isn't.
August 9, 2007 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
A formal repudiation of the Bush precedents is probably necessary, and this is one way to go about it.
Note, in the alternative, that impeachments could be taken up after the subjects leave office, at a time when chastened Senate Republicans no longer have their backs to the wall defending "their" Administration.
August 9, 2007 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great, now we have Congress further abdicating its responsibility and former presidents prosecuted by their successors? What a fragrant daisy-chain that will make.
The option that should not be ruled out is the one that is clearly provided for in the Constitution. Dare I speak its name?
August 9, 2007 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Impeachment is the ONLY way to begin to repair the damage Bush has done. Without impeachment, we will be stuck with this garbage forever. You may not like the solution, but it IS the solution.
And would everyone please look up the word impeachment and understand what it means? The House impeaches by a simple majority. The Senate tries and convicts. To impeach does not mean to convict. Impeachment is enough. Conviction would ice the cake, but impeachment would send the message, loud and clear.
House Democrats MUST impeach the president and the vice president.
August 9, 2007 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree accountability is necessary, but if curbing a rogue president (while he's in office and still doing damage) is dismissed as a waste of time, a post-mortem impeachment won't be well received, either.
If the patient's ailing, seems to me the time to treat him is before the autopsy.
August 9, 2007 7:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obviously you can't impeach someone not in office at the time. The only penalty for conviction is removal from office, so a conviction would be meaningless, and the current Supreme Court would rule that an impeachment was illegal.
I wonder how many of us are really willing to fight to defeat Democratic Congressmen or Senators, by persuading good candidates to run in opposition in the primaries. Then, we would have to dig deep and ensure adequate campaign finances for "our" candidates. My guess is that the number is a very small one.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 9, 2007 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
peter miller said: The only way we can defeat the Bush administration is to maintain maximum pressure against it, maximum exposure, to keep the American people as politically active against the administration as possible.
As far as it goes, I agree: we have to keep on keeping on. On the other hand, Cheney / Bush will continue to do whatever they want. They believe with a perfect faith that the State, and their persons, are one, and 'The People' is an abstraction. It's hard to defeat that level of delusion -- and notions that we'll be able to simply cut off funding, with the Republicans screeching that the Democrats are 'endangering the nation' -- well, that did work to cow the Democrats this last time, over FISA warrantless surveillance, didn't it?
This isn't a trollish commentary -- it's the way the 'administration' acts: So, I'm doin' this; what're y'all gonna do? Nothin!
And what, then, do we do? If they invent yet another war with Iran... what do we do?
I still hold out for impeachment.
August 9, 2007 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We the people hold enormous power. What we can do is participate in a general strike, lasting long enough to badly cripple corporate profits. Bush's corporate sponsors will crumble if their stock options become worthless, as they would.
However, we would have to miss an episode or two of American Idol to do a general strike, so that isn't even remotely possible. It can only be done if we let Joe do it for us.
Hoppy in Sacramento
August 9, 2007 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
And it can't be laid out there like one of Leahy's deadlines. It should be accompanied by a dignified but vigorous "campaign" to insure the public understands what's at stake. It's work, folks, but if we don't do it, our children will have to fight a much tougher battle.
August 9, 2007 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
When impeachment is off the table, the centerpiece is a cornucopia of corruption.
August 9, 2007 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mark's commission idea is imaginative, but his attempt to analogize it, even distantly, to a truth and reconciliation commission won't fly.
No one of any importance will tell the truth, because no laws have been broken for which they might wish to seek amnesty. How do I know that no laws have been broken? Because the House Judiciary Committee Chairman has not begun a formal investigation into the possible impeachment of the President.
Circular? Un-uh!
Our national political culture requires that the debate over the rights and duties of the branches of government inter sese take place in the Congress with the People looking on. And thus far, the Congressional leadership has determined not that the House can't vote Articles of Impeachment, not that the Senate can't convict, but rather that the People are not ready to attend the debate.
I suspect that the pols whose careers depend on gaging the public mood know what they're about.
August 9, 2007 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sept. 15. Washington, DC. Be there.
August 9, 2007 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The major work that is needed is to expose the workings of this administration. The Constitution is not founded on trust, but its opposite. The antidote to distrust is transparency, implying oversight that makes a public record.
What is needed is the equivalent of grand jury, which is hearings, not indictment, or impeachment. My guess is that the facts would force impeachment, and it would be successful, but it is premature to talk about it. What we assume is obvious is not, to others. Answers are needed. For example, "Mr. Gonzales, we are not persuaded by your explanation of the hospital visit. Can you explain why you would hound a gravely ill man who was not useful to you in any official capacity?"
Pull that thread.
August 9, 2007 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obvious but false.
August 9, 2007 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
The people's appetite for impeachment will never be whetted until they can smell it roasting in the oven, but so far our "leaders" have kept it in the freezer.
August 9, 2007 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
John Fund, then the op-ed editor of the WSJ, once pronounced to one of Grover Noquist's little gatherings that impeaching Clinton was not not an act of justice, but rather an act of political will. This statement was a couple of years before Monica Lewinsky even arrived at the White House.
Fund was right, and it pains me to say that there is no political will to go for the political jugular of this administration. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps it is simple chickenshittery. Or maybe it is an attempt at strategic politics. (I vote for the former.)
But, I suggest that ultimately justice will not come from within America. There are civil cases in the courts of the EU that could potentially get very interesting after a few years of testimony.
When Cheney, Rummy and W all face indictment at the Hague, or even a lower court, I will be satisfied.
Can anybody say Pinochet?
August 9, 2007 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hound, Mr. Wright? I cannot accept your characterization inasmuch as it is so very far from being what I intended or indeed, what occurred. Simply stated, there was no hounding whatsoever.
And to suggest that the Attorney General was "useful" to me is preposterous. If anything, I intended to be useful to him. I was aware that his temporary replacement did not have the knowledge and experience of the issues at hand that the Attorney General, from his many years of service, had and wanted to ensure that the Attorney General's views were made known and that his illness did not result in his being cut out of the decision making process.
August 9, 2007 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good!
Nothing but nothing is owed to the perpetrators. What the Republicans have to gain is to not be associated with Bush and Cheney and their dirty dozens as the details of their treasonous activity is laid out before he public. Maybe you do not understand just how cut and dried the case against Bush inc. is...and just how many different counts there are with each and every one of them impeachable. The average American is at this point unaware of what has been done and the magnitude of the crimes. At this point they mainly think a lot of lives and money have been wasted and that was enough last election to cost the Republicans both houses.
August 9, 2007 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
...but when we heard his views and didn't like them, we weren't so interested in his continued inclusion. And, as you know, General Ashcroft was succeeded by someone more agreeable.
August 9, 2007 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope I wasn't confusing -- I wasn't proposing that such a commission be created in the current congress and given subpoena power. I was imagining a commission that would begin in 2009. Congress could pass a resolution now -- without requiring a presidential signature -- that would call on such a commission to be created, and lay the groundwork so that it could start immediately in 2009.
Still ambitious, but at least not subject to a veto.
August 9, 2007 7:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yuk.
Love to hear that clip on the evening news.
August 9, 2007 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will Leni Riefenstahl document the triumph of this will? What was gained?
Force the questions. The answers will be lies until the conflicts become too obvious to ignore.
August 9, 2007 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
On what basis can anyone who does not have psychic gifts assert that because there are not 67 votes in the Senate now, there are not going to be?
Unless you hold it as impossible that impeachment proceedings might shed light on vile and politically indefensible acts by near-historically unpopular officials, I don't think you can so casually exclude every scenario capable of creating 67 Senators willing to convict for reasons of sheer political expediency alone.
Basically, I don't see how any logical case against initiating impeachment proceedings can be made without first justifying the premise that potentially detrimental political consequences to the Senate are so unlikely that the difference between having them and not having them is functionally non-existent.
I'm not arguing that it's not a justifiable premise. Merely that whether it is or isn't is something that needs to be established rather than assumed. Otherwise, the potentially detrimental consequences to the general welfare and common good of a pretty large portion of the world are literally of such enormity that, to me, the de facto logical case suggests action. Possibly urgent action.
August 9, 2007 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Assuming you refer to the ICC in The Hague, what lower court would be relevant?
Further, there are several US and international ex post facto issues. First, the US has not joined the ICC, which would have no authority within the territory of the United States. Second, if an external state were to attempt arrest of indicted individuals outside the US, the acts involved would have to have taken place after the 2002 creation of the ICC.
While I do not know if Pinochet had a diplomatic passport, it has been customary to grant them to former heads of state (and often government). Arresting an individual holding a diplomatic passport creates a conflict between the ICC Treaty and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Even if the US ratified the ICC Treaty, I cannot easily see how the US could agree to its application ex post facto against actions in 2003. One of the reasons the post-WWII International Military Tribunals were regarded as victors' justice was that they were applied selectively, and under (for Nuremberg) an initial agreement among the US, USSR, and UK. Had crimes against peace been more specifically tied to the Kellogg-Briand Accord, there might have been a better fit, although certain actions of the USSR against Finland and Poland would be...difficult. Had crimes against humanity been tied to the Hague Conventions, and perhaps the principle of hostis humani generis used against pirates, again there might have been a cleaner case, as long as "clean" might have applied to Katyn Forest and Sir Arthur Harris' "dehousing" strategy.
Regaining a rule of law should not be of the same logic of "we had to destroy this village to save it."
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 9, 2007 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I may be wrong but I believe the Judiciary Committee takes a House vote to proceed with initial inquiry (a special committee) and eventually all articles of impeachment are voted on by the House with a majority required to impeach on any one.
Anyone can call for impeachment but the Judiciary must initiate it. In fact, 14 state Democratic Parties have voted impeachment resolutions, over 80 towns and cities have passed resolutions and 17 states are considering resolutions. That alone is unheard of. Mainstream polls and the media are avoiding the impeachment question but the few polls show at least half of people support impeachment.
That half of the country favors impeachment without knowing the dirty details of Bush and Cheney's offenses is remarkable. What is different now than in Nixon's day is that Congress is not representing the people or the Constitution and will not even broach the question though bills have been introduced.
August 9, 2007 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I get the case for impeachment. I would be for impeachment if there were a chance of conviction. I'm not quite sure what your point is.
Impeachment without conviction is impotence materialized. It has no effect.
Nothing is owed to the perpetrators. But the perpetrators are sitting in the Senate waiting to vote against conviction on impeachment. If you can get 34 Republican Senators to leave office, impeachment might have a chance.
Impeachment gives them the chance to argue that what Bush has done was right. As long as some elected official stands up for Bush, his crimes won't seem so bad. Impeachment without conviction confirms that what Bush has done was right. It legitimizes his constitutional wrongs.
August 9, 2007 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm simply saying I think you are wrong about the possible outcomes of impeachment hearings.
I see why you think otherwise, why is that so hard for you to understand that someone might disagree?
Then there is the small matter of perusing what is the morally correct behavior even if it is not as successful as one would like.
August 9, 2007 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's fair, but I don't know where your hope comes from. We are not dealing with moral people. The people in the White House and their friends in the Senate are political sociopaths.
August 9, 2007 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
People have turned these men and women into Kings, Lords and Ladies. The argument as it stands is all bases on a "submilinable" acceptance of plebian status, with little to no powers.
Can't do, can't do, can't do, never got much done.
The ignorance of impeachment mixed with dazzling ignorance of popular sovereignty killed lady liberty and extinguished her torch.
wake up people, they shit too, just like me and you.
well, except Dick Cheney who is a hologram now.
August 10, 2007 3:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
People have turned them into kings, people can turn them into ordinary folks again.
August 10, 2007 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Impeachment proceedings actually will have more of a corrective benefit on the actions of future presidents than on this one. I do not assume that future presidents, including President Clinton II or President Obama, will voluntarily give back power once they have it. In fact, I assume that future presidents will want to make the office more and more imperial, and more and more immune to public accountability. I don't care what party they are. Our founders knew this, too, which is why they crafted such a careful system of checks and balances. They knew that power corrupts, and sought to minimize the risk.
But they did not forsee quite this circumstance, I fear. Or if they did, they thought it would be counteracted by opposing forces. That has not happened yet.
The only counterforce left is an aroused and a angry electorate, and even that is being manipulated by big media and big business.
Impeachment is the solution to a constitutional crisis, not the crisis itself. Bush/Cheney ARE the crisis. And they are just the front men for an entire layer of the world's economy that seeks to actively subvert democracy and put more power in the hands of their class.
I understand the rationale, and the atmosphere of doom and gloom about the possibility of impeachment, but that isn't right. Defeatism is what they have always hoped for. They count on their enemies being less ballsy than they are. With them, it's always double down, bluff and do the extreme thing, figuring your adversaries won't have the nerve to go that far.
So far, they've been right. Will they continue to game the system like this? Does no one have any guts?
August 10, 2007 5:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
If our representatives in Washington no longer represent We The People - or do what the majority believes is right - then we must turn to the States.
The States must insist that the federal government follow the Constitution. As Anon/Deep Throat has suggested, the State AGs can empower Grand Juries and seek redress on our behalf. (through auditing for constitutional compliance)
I still think we should try - on all fronts - to insist on Constitutional Compliance. Failing that, we're sunk.
August 10, 2007 6:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is a mistake to try to balance what is right against a prediction about what might happen in the future. Right now it looks like there would not be enough votes to impeach Bush. But there was a time when it looked like there would not be enough votes to impeach Nixon. As the investigation of Watergate deepened, sentiment changed, and even Nixon's supporters changed their minds.
That means that investigations should proceed at full speed. We should not try to foreclose what the investigations will reveal or what the consequences might be.
August 10, 2007 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the case of something like a TRC, it seems to me that the point isn't to shame this administration, per se. At least as far as most past transitional justice efforts are concerned, they happen after the fact - shaming an ex-president isn't especially powerful. But what a transitional justice framework that really allowed us to dig into the crimes of this administration (during the next one) would do is allow us to try to build a consensus about what is acceptable and what is not in executive branch conduct. That - beating back the notion of the unitary executive, examining the failures of unilateralism, and reaffirming the idea that the United States should be a supporter of human rights - would have some real sticking power.
August 10, 2007 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Impeach Gonzales. You have a better chance of accomplishing it and it will stop the obstruction in the DoJ and remove the White House's first line of defense. From there, you might be able to get at Rove.
August 10, 2007 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
What corrective benefit? What checks and balances? The threat of impeachment is no threat at all. It is only the threat of conviction that might deter a president. If you want to deter future presidents, you have to be ready to convict President Bush. And then you have to be ready to convince a Democratically controlled Senate to convict the next president, who in all likelihood will be a Democrat.
There are no checks and balances in our government. There are hobbling limitations on the Congress which cannot enact a law without presidential agreement. Our system is not bicameral but rather effectively tricameral. It's ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, they can override a veto but only by majorities that would secure an impeachment. (Arguably, overriding a veto is harder than impeachment since impeachment can be initiated by a simple majority vote of the House while a veto override requires a 2/3 vote of the House.)
Who can investigate the executive branch? Only the executive branch. Who can prosecute the executive branch? Only the executive branch. Contempt of congress can only be prosecuted by the executive branch.
Other than the purely theoretical threats of a veto override and impeachment, there is no limitation on the president.
Our founders were undoubtedly geniuses, but they were not divinely inspired and our constitution is not perfect. If we merely look at the text of the constitution, the president is not prohibited from doing anything. Our constitution was instigated on the theory that the government had to be granted powers and could not act without such a grant. That has been corrupted such that the president is presumed to have the power unless it is limited by the constitution, which again, places no limits on the president.
I don't believe that impeachment is a constitutional crisis. But as a solution, it is more chicken soup than antibiotic.
August 10, 2007 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm curious why congressional GOPs are not throwing shrub under the bus. Imagine a dem version of the current whitehouse:
- WH issues edict to shrink USScourt by 2, last in first out. 1month later re-expands court to 9
- by reason of political capital, hires 300 attys to beef up antitrust division. First investigation? newscorp, clear channel..
- Gives broad new powers to a newly tripled SEC, and IRS...
I think even the dimmest bulb in the party would be nervous about "how it works" when you happen to be out of WH.
August 10, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
What are the options of bringing treason trials after Bush is out of office? A new president and senate together should be able to uncover full details of much of the broad swath of treasons committed in this administration. On the one hand, that might establish a precident for subsequent administrations being "vindictive." But with a proper airing of the evidence, the bar for conviction could be raised high, and still put these people in jail for many years. Any death penalty treason convictions should of course have that penalty commuted by the president.
What if, for instance, it could be proved that (1) Bush's people knew as fact that the Saudi Royals were intimately involved in 9/11, and (2) Bush's people nonetheless not only failed to act against the Sauds, but sold them billions worth of our best arms? That's (slightly) speculative, but the next president can find out. If that's not the case, the myriad actions against the Constitution may also shade into treason in some of their specifics.
One minor quibble: electing an anarcho-syndicalist would restore much of the Constitution. Plus, we need a two-party (at least) system, and the Republicans just won't last much longer as a national party. We should consider what might rise to take their place. As a cross between libertarianism and populism, anarcho-syndicalism by some other name may be the coming thing.
August 10, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
While the key investigation was in the House Judiciary Committee, remember that the Nixon abuses became known through parallel investigations in both Houses, as well as investigative reporting. Even before Watergate, Sam Ervin's Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights uncovered inappropriate Army surveillance in 1970.
Even though the impeachment resolution would have to come through House Judiciary, after Watergate, Ervin chaired a Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices. While the findings obviously affected the House movement toward impeachment, the investigation technically was not related to impeachment and thus did not present a conflict of interest with the House.
Whether or not "impeachment is on the table", investigations such as the hearings on Valerie Plame Wilson, Gonzales' friendly hospital visit, etc., are a necessary part of building a consensus toward impeachment. By consensus, I am speaking as much or more about public opinion than among Republican and Democratic legislators.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 10, 2007 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is no one literally thinking outside the box that is Washington and the media that covers it? There are 50 state governments that have a much bigger, if quieter, influence on their representatives in Washington. How are they aligning on this issue? Have they realized yet or has anyone pointed out to them that increasing Presidential power dilutes their own.
August 10, 2007 8:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't say Congress should abdicate its responsibility. I said no options for accountability should be taken off the table. It's not an either/or proposition.
And I don't think there is an effective argument that a President, a Vice President, an Attorney General, and a passel of apparatchiks should be able to commit multiple, heinous crimes and be exempt from prosecution.
August 10, 2007 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
How about it if we don't just "gamble" on Democratic gains, but actually work for them?
The goal is accountability. Impeachment is one path; prosecution is another; a Truth Commission is yet another. Defeating the Republicans -- i.e. holding them accountable politically -- is just as valid as the rest. And it can facilitate other forms of accountablility.
August 10, 2007 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Impeachment -- as desirable as it might be -- would hardly be adequate to repair the damage that Bush has done. So I'd be loathe to limit ourselves to just one way to repair this damage. This isn't some one-shot deal.
August 10, 2007 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
!
And let's not forget John Dean. We could use another John Dean about now...
-- ARG
August 10, 2007 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am wonder also why the arguments against impeachment often boil down to "not enough support" & "think of how the Dems will look if they fail". Are we as spineless as the Democrats when it comes to standing up to principles?
Why is the public still so afraid of media spin at this point? (Besides, they love drama; and bringing out the worst in gossip--who says it will go pro -Bush?) No one believes the talking heads anymore and why the hell do we need to worry about protecting the Dem's reputation. They're on shaky ground with the public even without impeachment proceedings.
Investigating Bush Cheney would only serve to remind the public that Congress is willing to do it's job and hold the Prez accountable as the public asks them too.
This country needs a g*d-damn General Strike. All this anger and frustration should go somewhere...
August 10, 2007 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
*
I think such a commission may be possible... like, in 2019, after Cheney has been president for 8 more years, and then tries to suspend the elections of 2016, leading to another civil war!!
Or, we could try to nip that in the bud by using the tools the Founders gave us.
Impeachment is the cure.
-- ARG
August 10, 2007 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Got a solution to all that?
I suggest Anon/Deep Throat's solution: audits required by the States, through their AG's and Grand Juries.
The States have a stake here. We may have to seek redress through our State, to insist that the federal government comply with the constitution.
August 10, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
You would think that would be the smartest thing to do to regain their popularity but then they'd catch holy hell from the Repubs who hold the pursestrings and "own them" through election funding.
Besides, if they hold out long enough, then the Repub party can enjoy these nifty new Executive Powers someday in the future...why rock the boat?
August 10, 2007 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
^
Thanks, Conrad, for making that point. I've been waiting to hear somebody say that.
All the "pragmatists" who state as fact that there aren't 67 votes in the Senate for conviction need to consider that these Senators will be required to stand up and vote. Depending on the case presented, and the mood of the electorate (once they are forced to actually hear the evidence, which doesn't get much airplay on the MSM), this could be a very uncomfortable vote.
So for those who see only the political pros and cons (and neglect the fact that it is clearly the right thing to do) -- wouldn't thare be some value in forcing the Republicans to stand by their man?? Couldn't you spin a vote to acquit into a pretty effective 30 second campaign ad?
-- ARG
August 10, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's my whole argument. There is no solution to any of this. I'm sorry, but the states are more impotent than Congress. They have no formal method of seeking redress. And in any case, it is a mistake to think of states as independent entities. States merely stand in for the people who live within their borders. If the people don't care, then the state doesn't care.
What mechanism do you propose the states use to insist that the federal government comply with the constitution?
August 10, 2007 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
%
Forgive me for posting the same thing in two places. (I posted this on Today's Must Read thread.)
...
I almost hate to bring this up, but it's been bothering me for a while.
I've read speculation that BushCo will manufacture yet another emergency/disaster, and try to suspend the elections in 2008. While you could argue that a war with Iran might play into that strategy, I do not beleive that's the plan. I think that would be over-reaching, even for this mal-administration.
Consider this: they don't have to suspend the next election to stay in power. Dick Cheney could be elected president.
Now, stay with me here. This is still a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory, I realize. But they wouldn't have to declare martial law or suspend the elections. All they'd have to do is (still) manufacture an emergency or two, rig the republican convention so that none of the (lackluster) candidates can win on the first ballot, mount a "draft Cheney" campaign, because "we're in a crisis", then pull all their dirty tricks to steal the election in November.
It would be a grander, bolder version of the same game they've played for the last three elections. ("Dems are weak on terror; in these bad times, you need us Rethugs in power.")
Sure, it's far-fetched. But it's pretty scary, too! I mean, at that point, it would be game over, permanently.
I certainly hope I'm wrong. But I don't think we can count on the next election being our salvation.
That's why I strongly support impeachment now. Let's try to nip this thing in the bud, while we still can.
-- ARG
August 10, 2007 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
No ICC needed. For Rumsy (no typo) or other gentlemen of the actual administration there is art. 23.4 of the Spanish Judicial Law.
August 10, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
#
Um... Can you say "special prosecutor"?
I knew you could.
-- ARG
August 10, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could you be more specific on what this law states, and how it would be enforced in the US?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 10, 2007 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
The NYT has a story on Maher Ahar today, an innocent man who was shipped to Syria to be tortured even though neither the FBI nor Syria thought he was a threat. The thing that stands out to me in these impeachment threads is that no one defends the administration anymore. No one claims that Bush and Cheney have not committed crimes and offenses against the constitution that are of the highest seriousness.
It may sound pollyannish but, rightly or wrongly, America has always stood for justice and the rule of law. If any person, especially the holder of the highest office in the land, commits a serious crime, they must be indicted and tried and held accountable. When we decide that we will not do this in any given case, we have decided that America is not what we claimed. I don't think most Americans have conceded that.
August 10, 2007 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
"I am even more concerned with curbing the next administration..." Agreed, and I am concerned with how many more 'executive orders' and how much more entrenched the practice of the 'unitary executive' will become in the following 17 months left of the reign of Bush/Cheney.
After the SC ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld which said that all detainees had to be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions the WH issued an executive order which pointedly did not disavow the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" - that would likely be found illegal if used by officials inside the US.
The executive order means that the CIA can once again hold foreign terror suspects indefinitely, without charges, in black sites, without notifying their families or local authorities, or offering access to legal counsel. "The New Yorker," Aug l3, '07.
A Congress unable, apparently, to impeach and a Supreme Court whose rulings can be wiped out by WH executive orders, by the time the 17 months of Bush/Cheney are up we may see the inauguration of a president in name only. How long will it be before we don't do inaugurations, we do crownings - and I'm not talking about a Constitutional Monarch.
A question - can the objects of impeachment continue to issue executive orders?
August 10, 2007 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
There would be some irony there, wouldnt it? A groudswell states rights movement by progressives to counter balance an out of control, overspending right wing administration.
August 10, 2007 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly my point. This is exactly why the impeachment clause was put in. Bless George Mason and crew who wrote impeachment into the constitution. We should honor their vision with action.
August 10, 2007 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
A lot of good comments here, but I am sad to say nothing will happen due to lack of democratic courage and guts. Cheney/Bush have done the most outrageous and extreme acts imaginable in the last 6 years and got away with it.
Consider that the stolen elections enabled all of it and those acts themselves were amazing in their audacity. The voter supression, the scrubbed voter rolls, the tossed absentee ballots, blacks targeted by police, hundreds of thousands denied the vote by false "felon" lists, voter caging, inadequate voting machines in urban heavily democratic precints and, of course, diebold.
Then perhaps they engineered 9/11 and even if only complicit by incompetence, squandering international good will to wage an illegal unneccesary war of agression against a nation that posed no credible national security risk and was not involved in said terrorist attack.
Then they enacting massive tax cuts aimed primarily at the wealthy in the third month of the invasion, i.e. during wartime and granted tax immunity to corporations who open a headquarters offshore. Don't forget Delay's brown shirt operations that ensured most of K street only hired republican lobbyists and banned those that contributed to democrats, ect.
It is hard to imagine acts done with more venal spite and shameless arrogance. But the corporate media and much of the public drank it all in; still stunned into blinking sheep in the overwhelming tidal force of it all. Many like myself were screaming, but no one wanted to hear.
The air was thick with a white supernatural aura, almost occult in nature. Remember when it was only Tim Robbins who would speak out? His kids were attacked by their teachers at school for killing our troops and aiding the enemy. No one dared to speak a dissenting word for fear of being branded unpatriotic.
This madness continued for years. Does no one remember? I do. By sheer act of "political will" as John Fund put it, an artificial pseudo reality was created and installed before our very eyes. Those who objected were branded as "anti-American."
Note how Bush hmself became America. You may only object to administration policy, but Bush had become America. To dissent from Bush was to be against America.
The orwellian game was so simple and BRAZEN, yet everyone played along. Yet this is EXACTLY how the democrats need to act now. They must have the balls to act with courage and confidence knowing that impeachment is the only remedy to the breakdown of seperation of powers.
Where are the democratic balls? Why do only republicans dare to act out the most lavish, absurd and violently outlandish and extreme measures and get away with them nearly every time? They are rarely if ever punished for this. I understand the corporate media gives them an advantage.
Yet if there is one thing that is needed right now it is political will, guts, courage and balls to undo this nightmare. It breaks my heart to know the democrats won't do it. We are totally f**cked.
Why is it that when the republicans had the majority in the Senate, the democratic minority almost never obstructed effectively as the repub minority now do? Why are the dems so impotent even in majority, and the repubs, even in defeat, so able to foil everything? I think it is mostly the will to do so. They do it because they can.
Democrats don't do it because they fear they can't or shouldn't or consider what people will think or how their opposition will portray them. Part of the reason for this is that the repubs don't care who they hurt if they make a mistake. The million murdered Iraqis and dead US soldiers and those maimed and damaged are also expendible. No big. The war profiteers have made their billions.
I fear though we are at a point where there is not much left to lose if the dems don't impeach.
August 10, 2007 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here’s where this post fails:
Suppose this coming election goes pretty much the way hopeful Democrats think it will: larger congressional majorities and a Democrat in the WH. How many new power brokers would want to look backwards? Right now, Pelosi thinks Congress has more urgent and current business to conduct. That point of view most likely would come back in spades post election. The D's would primarily focus on more future oriented ways to use their new powers. If I'm right, this renders most of the above post into a pile of sterile verbiage. Who would want to look backwards?
Kevin Russell Cook
Contributors to this cafe have correctly noted, if the Democratic leadership were as effective as the R's were, the recent FISA votes would have never come to the floor. Our leadership, and the author of the above post, have this defect in their thinking. No creative ability to apprehend anything save the most obvious. It's all linear. "We don't have the votes." End of argument. NOT!!!
Using the impeachment process could be very educational for our nation‘s voters. It is not be the negative image of the Clinton case. And, if it came off like that, the fault would lie with the equivocating way the House managers presented their case.
What these “don't have the votes” people always fail to consider is that we could win by losing. We could win by forcing the Republicans to stand up for a law-breaking Administration. We could win in the court of public opinion. We could win by standing up for something that really matters. (This last point is not a minor one.) R’s might even back down when faced with their options! Not every battle must be won in the conventional way in order for it to be worth fighting. Why the fight alone would boost the abysmally low approval rating this congress “enjoys“! For heavens sake, give some thought for why those numbers are so low. It’s not due to the policies favored. It is due to the leadership's inability to grasp the many ways the system can be used to our favor. But, R’s say impeachment will backfire, and that testimony is meekly accepted by the leadership.
If we look at each vote in isolation without grasping the potential visible in the broader outlines of the greater drama, we will be eternally snookered.
This August recess, we need to get through to our representatives. How to do this should be kicked around a bit. (Personal contact is my guess as to the best way.)
August 10, 2007 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait for the truth? I don't have 30, 40 years, thank you very much. There isn't going to be any Truth Commission in 2008. By that time, IF we have another election and IF some Democrat is elected, everyone will be like, "Hey, it's time to move on."
There is a way to stand up and say NO, now, before the egregious acts and behaviors become part of the model, part of what is allowed in the future.
Starting impeachment proceedings (so what if there aren't 67 votes in the Senate TODAY to convict?) is a way of turning on the light, of saying NO, we do not accept the lawlessness, the arrogance, the corruption, and this Administration's spurning of the Constitution.
If no impeachment proceeding starts now, this year, then there is no need to pretend anymore that our system of governance is valid.
There's not going to be any Truth Commission. Hell, we can't even get an honest investigation into the biggest crime of this century, and it's been almost 6 years ago now.
August 10, 2007 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not the inability of congress to win a scrap that turns people off. It is the unwillingness of congress to even enter one!
Kevin Russell Cook
August 10, 2007 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anon/Deep Throat suggests the State AGs appoint Grand Juries to investigate, insist on audits, subpoena witnesses, etc. Take a look at his/her ideas. I am no expert - but if the federal govt is impotent, perhaps the States can do something.
Take a look here and here. Links are provided for some info here.
August 10, 2007 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
To put it mildly, Reece is full of prunes.
Can't win the battle; don't fight it.
What nonsense! It absolutely ingnores a myriad of bills brought to a floor vote, over more than two hundred years, merely for the purpose of making the opposition go into the next election defending their votes. In the end the people decide on whether the impeachment had substance or whether it did not. Remember the Alamo, and San Jacinto, too.
Kevin Russell Cook
August 10, 2007 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's a certain consistency in Mr. Schmitt's post. Got a Problematic Chief Exec acting up in unconstitutional fashion?
Why let's make up and use a extra-constitutional means to get things in check!
All makes perfect sense (in the case our constitution ought be regarded as obsolete.) Stupid and stubborn me, I'm not there yet.
Kevin Russell Cook
August 10, 2007 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
oh please. wishful thinking and strained rhetoric.
You would make a terrible strategist. The men at the Alamo expected reinforcements. They would have been foolish to remain otherwise under those conditions.
As Sun Tzu would have said, "the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory."
August 10, 2007 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty sure that states don't have the authority to try federal officers for federal or constitutional crimes. I doubt that any federal officer would willingly comply with a state grand jury. I doubt they could be compelled to comply with a state grand jury. Maybe if it was a murder investigation or something of the sort, of course, but that is not on the table.
Federal law is superior to state law per Article VI of the Constitution. States cannot try to destroy the federal government per McCulloch v. Maryland.
August 10, 2007 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps we should develop an alternative to the Consitution. It should all be based on political expediency and "Machievellian strategy?
Many people don't understand enough about impeachment. The issue is not about George Bush and getting a Democrat in the White House. The Constitution and the rule of law. Impeachment must happen to repair the Constitution and restore the rule of law. It is anything but irrevelent. Even at this early stage, a clear majority of Americans agree.
Please watch the recent Bill Moyers programs with John Nichols and Bruce Fein.
I belong to Washington For Impeachment. We have hosted Rocky Anderson, Phil Burke, David Lindorff and Elizabeth de la Vega. They agree that Nancy Pelosi is derelict in her duty. She has broken her oath of office and is just plain wrong.
Impeachment is an investigation and an indictment. You don't count the votes before the case has been heard. When the process begins and the crimes of Bush and Cheney become part of the public record, the pressure will be enormous on Congress to indict and remove.
It's not time consuming. It can be done in a day.
Most of the work is done in committee. Impeachment investigations have automatic subpoena power and are immune to state secrets and executive privilege. A White House under this kind of pressure will have trouble bombing Iran and continuing to bankrupt the country.
This isn't about the next election. It's about preserving the Republic.
Impeachment always benefits the Party who intitiates it whether or not it's successful.
Impeaching Clinton helped the GOP.
August 11, 2007 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, its almost as if the Democrat leaders use the Republicans as their political consultants.
August 11, 2007 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
moon,
wait till you hear the whining from the Republicans when President Hillary takes for herself the powers and authority for which Bush laid the precedent.
August 11, 2007 2:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
duplicate
August 11, 2007 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The men at the Alamo did not expect reinforcements, or to survive. They may not have understood fully that theirs was going to be a tactical defeat, which still was a strategic victory that gave the main Texan force time to assemble the forces that defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto.
While I agree with Sun Tzu's principle, there are times when conditions, especially early in a war, make it impractical to get reinforcements or make a full withdrawal. In the early days of the Pacific Theater of WWII, think of Wake Island and Bataan. Once in a great while, troops that are forced into an apparently doomed battle, as with the British at Rorke's Drift Station, manage to win in spite of all odds.
The idea of a tactical beating that still contributes to an overall victory includes Thermopylae, Dunkirk, and Dieppe. While it wasn't strictly a battle, the soldiers on HMS Birkenhead didn't choose the conditions, but were not fools.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 11, 2007 4:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Alamo defenders repeatedly asked for reinforcements. Some reinforcements actually came, some were destroyed on the way to the Alamo, and the Texian rebels could have sent more reinforcement if the government had been of one mind on the issue.
It is obvious, in any case, that the men at the Alamo did not go there with the intent of becoming martyrs or with the intent of providing time for the Texian forces to assemble. They were there as defenders of San Antonio.
While large defeats can galvanize a state and lead to a larger response, few strategists make it their object to suffer such a defeat.
As an analogy, none of this helps, because impeachment proceedings have the potential to martyr the other side. In an impeachment, who is Santa Anna and who is Davy Crockett?
August 11, 2007 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
The just-ness of a war is usually decided after the fact, but mainly it's decided by disinterested observers.
Same for impeachment. Being right is the justification, but that must be the conclusion of those without a stake. Therefore hearings first.
August 11, 2007 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Part of my elementary schooling was in San Antonio, and one of the best and most intellectually honest curricula was in Texas History. The defenders of the Alamo did not go there intending to die, but the situation become increasingly worse, before Santa Anna gave the deguello signal for no quarter. While the "line in the dirt" has been somewhat dramatized, at least one Texan chose to escape, and his choice was respected. At the very end, the ordnance officer tried to detonate the magazine, taking as many attackers as possible with them.
You say the Texian government could have sent reinforcements, but there are many decisions, by many governments, not to reinforce. Some, in retrospect, were wise, and some were not. I don't feel good about Fletcher turning back the Wake Island relief force, or his reasons for doing it. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that even a reinforced garrison could have withstood the Japanese at that point, and having a maneuverable reserve could have been more important at that point than inflicting more attrition on a less-than-critical Japanese force. Contrast that to the decision to throw all possible reserves into the Battle of Midway, including a damaged carrier that did not survive, yet contributed to one of the turning points of the Pacific War.
You first brought up the analogy, and I continued it. The relevance is that certain decisions may indeed be seen as unlikely to win, but the action may still be valuable in support of a larger cause. Even if hearings do not result in an impeachment process, or if the impeachment process may not produce a conviction, these actions may still have strategic validity in an incremental return to constitutional government.
Neither Santa Anna nor Davy Crockett are especially good models, unless one thinks of Santa Anna as a kinder, gentler Cheney. Crockett was not a key commander, but perhaps his stand might be likened, with more success, to Waxman's early hearings on the Valerie Plame Wilson case.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 11, 2007 8:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reece -
You’ve chosen to attack a rhetorical flourish while ignoringing the thrust of the argument.
Gosh! you’ve convinced me. You’re observation that “we're” f**ked”, now that’s good strategy! Strange how the “nays” offer so little to bolster their argument of bad strategy. I’m so glad the election is coming to save us! The voters will see us a having been so wise to have sat on our hands for 16 months while we pester them to give us money because we’re not “them”.
Kevin Russell Cook
August 11, 2007 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
For me, the case against trumps the case for impeachment. We've got so much work to do to get this country back on the right track. Don't divert all the energy into a pointless exercise. Mark Schmitt
Like passing the Protect America Act (FISA amendment) in order to absolve Bush and Gonzales for their past violations of the Constitution -- said violations now retroactively approved by the Democratic Congress?
Initially, I said that "Mark's commission idea is imaginative." Having read the entries on this thread and thought about the matter over the past couple of days I have concluded that Mark's proposal might better be described as impractical or, not to put too fine a point on it, as simply "dumb."
August 11, 2007 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Alright. I can't claim to have studied the Alamo.
I did not bring up the Alamo, the poster to whom I was responding did.
The myth of the Alamo is that Santa Anna's troops marched in, slaughtered everyone, and Davy Crockett went down swinging the butt of his Kentucky long rifle at the attackers. The poster would have the Republicans be the Mexicans and impeachment-initiating Democrats be Davy Crockett, whose slaughter leads to a strong response.
I think we can find in that a pre-existing belief that Republicans are this overwhelming, undeniable, and evil force who are on their way to crush the noble Democrats. But with the 2006 election win, that is not the situation we're in.
August 11, 2007 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kevin,
I didn't think your post really had any content to it . . . but let's take a look. You're suggestion is that we get elected politicians on record about Bush by forcing them to vote on impeachment.
That seems to ignore the fact that the Republicans have been voting for everything that Bush wanted for the past 6 years. Particularly, they enacted the restrictions on habeas corpus, they voted to get him into Iraq, they voted to continue funding the war and they support the surge, and now they have legitimized his warrantless wiretapping program.
They're on the record. What more do you want?
August 11, 2007 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's quite a bit of controversy on exactly how Crockett died. You quote the most common explanation. Lecturers at the Alamo, however, suggested that he was one of a handful of survivors captured and then shot. One of my teachers claimed that he was shot in the back while running, although I never heard that from anyone else. Some more recent information is ambiguous as to whether he died in battle, or was shot later.
Something again lost in myth is that there were Texican noncombatant survivors, women and slaves, but who were sheltering during the final attack; we do have (conflicting) Mexican and Texican accounts.
I doubt we will ever know. The Disney movies are very misleading; the Alamo compound was much larger than what remains today, but part was simply a log wall easily breached by the Mexicans. Once they launched the final attack, it didn't take long. Few will argue that there were very brave soldiers on both sides.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 11, 2007 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is instructive that opponents of impeachment not only don't draw the distinction between impeachment and removal, but actually imply that the Senate would vote on impeachment. As Mark Schmitt puts the case against impeachment above:
This is either Constitutionally illiterate or purposely obfuscatory. The Senate does not impeach. The House does.
Yes, even if the House impeached, the Senate would likely acquit Bush, Cheney, and/or Gonzalez. But the fact that impeachment opponents do not state this more clearly suggests that they know their case is a little weaker than than they want you to think.
One other note: much of this talk dances around the uncomfortable fact that there probably aren't the votes to impeach in the House. The real practical bar to impeachment isn't Senate Republicans (who will have no say in impeachment), but many, and perhaps most, House Democrats, including the leadership. But this would involve a more sober look at what the Democratic Party really stands for.
August 12, 2007 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
the fact that impeachment opponents do not state [the difference between impeachement and conviction] more clearly suggests that they know their case is a little weaker than than they want you to think
Disagree. This usage is common verbal shorthand. The expression may be grounded in "Constitutionally illiteracy," but its use is neither a sure-fire indication thereof, nor of deliberate obfuscation. The word's presence may be merely informal or merely sloppy, not necessarily uninformed or deceptive.
August 12, 2007 4:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
The extreme winner-take-all approach to politics will become the norm.
You mean, like impeachment drives becoming a normal feature of every president's second term, once the party out of power reaches a boiling point of frustration?
I'd say that's pretty much what's happened since '74.
Here's a new question: you talk about taking Cheney out first. (I like the Jack Bauer-tough talk.) What precisely are the charges against Cheney? Being dislikable and having a hunting accident are not enough; don't even bring up Scooter Libby and Plame, since it's been demonstrated that even a special prosecutor with all the power in the world couldn't make that one stick. What are the charges against Cheney specifically that would make his impeachment legitimate and not merely a mafia-style take-everybody-out-at-once?
August 12, 2007 7:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the one hand, that might establish a precident for subsequent administrations being "vindictive."
Gee, you think?
You think maybe something in the nature of our society might be changed, just a little, by the winning party trying to send the losing party to jail after every election?
That's the problem with everyone believing all this hyped-up stuff about Bush destroying the Constitution-- you think it justifies extreme measures to counteract. Well, the genius of our system has been our moderating of extreme impulses like that. At least, until blogs came along allowing the indignant to stoke each other higher and higher...
Enough stoking. Bush will be out on 1/20/09. Don't be such a drama queen, this isn't the Reichstag fire, it isn't even the Lusitania or the Maine.
August 12, 2007 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
There has been no investigation into criminal wrongdoing by anyone in the Bush gang except Libby who was found guilty. So, criminal investigations into the Bush gang are batting 1000. Hearings by Congress aren't to be compared to investigations into criminal acts where grand jury testimony is required. Hearings by Congress aren't Impeachment, which, if I'm correct, negates some of the maneuvers Bush uses to avoid prosecution. Go back to the Clinton impeachment for a precedent on what occurs on the House side.
Witnesses included Sidney Blumenthal, White House advisor, grand jury testimony of CLinton Secretary Bettie Curry, and Vernon Jordan, Clinton confidant and advisor. No executive privilege there. No hiding there for Bush....come out, come out wherever you are.
Whether or not the Bush gang took part in criminal activity has yet to be seen, but my guess is they would have as much a chance of surviving a criminal investigation as that snowball has to survive in hell. But don't depend on our illustrious AG, Alberto Gonzales to instigate any investigations.
Dem Rep Jay Inslee and a few other Democrats introduced a resolution to Impeach Gonzales. Time will tell, unless Gonzales "forgets" to show up.
Maybe Bush/Cheney will be called as witnesses in the Gonzales trial. Bush will probably demand to appear with Cheney and not by himself. There's a precedent for this, set by Bush himself.
August 12, 2007 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
You seem to see impeachment as just a vote. But, impeachment is a process, and that adds layer after layer. You imply there isn't a lot out there that hasn't been exposed already. And, even if otherwise, it won't make much difference to the voters. I disagree.
There is a lot of dirt still under the rug. (Please, no lenghty discourses on rug cleaning.) What's more, the dirt already exposed has not been properly contexted by our "he said, she said" media.
Lacking the most solid investigation, the Democratic leadership has been quite measured in their pronouncements. Republicans were quick to shout 'obstruction of justice' in the Clinton affair. Obstruction is going on now. What prominent person has bothered to assertively make such a point? A properly conducted impeachment process would include much more than just a vote. Properly advanced, it would have great value, and it would be seen as such by the public. I make this point in my other comments here. Let's restore constitutional rule.
Kevin Russell Cook
August 12, 2007 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush has been destroying the constitution, on top of politicization of government, gross incompetence, and rampant corruption and cronyism. Many people do not cede their civil liberties to this government and want them to know that. I have only seen serious discussion of serious issues around here. Now, trying to impeach a president for lying about a romp with an intern, that takes a pack of "drama queens."
August 12, 2007 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the truth commission is a great idea. In fact, I can think of several Republican presidential candidates who would love to have a full airing of the measures taken by a Republican administration to fight terrorism, and the attitudes of the Democratic members of Congress in opposition to them.
August 12, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, Mark, cream puff remedies won't do. My rebuttal to Tomasky's flawed line of thinking is at Stupidity for Dummies.
Thanks for bringing the topic of impeachment to the front page.
Best Constitutional wishes,
Ticia
August 12, 2007 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mg, I agree, a truth commission would be grand, we could get to the bottom of the Bush gang lies about pre War Iraq, why the Bush gang ignored the NIE titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the U.S.” the firing of US Attorneys, Cheney's Energy meetings, the Bush obsession with secrecy, lies about torture and black prisons overseas, abuse of executive privilege, signing statements, and the Constitution, ignoring the Rule of Law, Valerie Plame leak, other leaks of classified material for political purposes, election "caging", why the Bush gang ignored the Iraq Study Group report for so
long, the Pat Tillman investigation, and of course, the powers Bush took for himself in the guise of the war on terror....
note:
Phew, I'm too tired to go on, but you get the message.
Mg, and the truth shall set you free.
August 12, 2007 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, indeed. I would be delighted to have a full airing of the measures taken by the Bush Administration to give the appearance that it is Doing Something about terrorism, and maintaining a state of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that it uses to justify the whim du jour.
There are a great many appropriate measures to reduce terrorism, although terrorism can be reduced. Reducing every Muslim country to green glass would have done nothing about Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh. Attempting to confiscate Joe Foss' Medal of Honor as a potential weapon if taken on an airliner, however, is all too symbolic of Security Theater.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
August 12, 2007 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink