Comments are moderated. Please stay on topic.
The alternative is to investigate them to death in the House and Senate. Keep demanding that they turn over data and force their staff to come and testify. Have the executive privilege fight early and often and force the courts to deal with it.
I'm for impeachment because it looks like an administration enmeshed in an impeachment proceeding loses the ability to issue pardons. Let the house vote out any plausible article, then let the Senate start investigating, and future Scooters may realize that the administration can't completely protect them, and they might spill the beans.
Censure. Repeated censures - for each and every violation of the law. Not one big omnibus censure, but one after another that forces the Republicans to say "yes it's okay Bush pardoned Libby" and "yes it's okay Bush lied about Iraq" etc., etc. The trick is to make them pay a political price for what they've done.
Yes, even a failed impeachment will hold them accountable... if the call for it is coming from the public. I have no illusions that decent Republicans (aren't they extinct?) will go along with this. And I have no illusions about the Democratic leadership, hence no disappointment either. The call for investigations and the call for impeachment has to come from the public. It's where all progressive change has always originated from. The Democratic party didn't give black Americans civil rights. A civil rights movement brought the Democratic party leadership along in its stream.
Any ideas about how we ignite this movement?
Impeachment could probably simultaneously strip away executive privilege and the power of pardon. That makes it potentially useful as an investigative tool even though it's useless as a removal tool (because, as you say, we're never going to get to 17.)
One alternative: gather evidence on FISA violations and put the criminals in jail after 1/20/09 for that. SoL will not have run out on those crimes by that time.
Going forward: do not allow ANY legislation with MCA-style retroactive pardons. Everyone in the executive branch better come to believe that they are personally on the hook for lawbreaking starting 12:01 PM 1/20/09.
Bush has not only admitted to breaking the law, he has bragged about it and promised to keep on doing it. That'd be the wiretapping, of course.
As for alternatives to impeachment, Rahm Emmanuel was on the right track. Defund the entire executive branch.
Et tu Digby?
My instincts say ball-punching. Lots and lots of ball-punching. Like, whenever anyone in the country happens to get near one of these guys, a swift punch to the balls is given.
Alternatively, I like arbitrista's idea of repeated censures. Once a month or so. It would force the media to spend the last 18 months discussing the various horrible things this administration has done. They might even get into it -- "Censure of the Month!"
"And, of course, the conservative judiciary is likely to back them, if only by helping them run out the clock."
And, in view of Alito, Roberts and Scalia's support for the "unitary" dictatorsh-, I mean, executive, the result of taking anything to court would likely mean bad law would be on the books for decades.
How does a failed impeachment (which this inevitably would be) not exonerate Bush? It would STRENGTHEN his hand.
bum rush the stage yo.
And then there's the bigger question. What's the alternative?
1776.
Wait until we have a democratic president and then pardon them out of sheer contempt.
Well, I'm not a "senior Democrat" or anything like that. I simply feel that it is my responsibility as a citizen to call for Congress to remove these people from office. "Serious people" will, of course, disagree with me.
In some respects it was the failed impeachment of Clinton that allowed Bush to obtain the presidency in the first place. The vote between Gore and Bush would never have been as close as it was if Gore had been able to run on a platform of achievements of the Clinton presidency. Instead, Gore was forced to distance himself from Clinton. There were enough voters who were repulsed by Clinton's personal behavior that, while they didn't support impeachment, they wanted to restore dignity to the White House. Blatant corruption is something most voters won't tolerate, regardless of party affiliation. If impeachment proceedings did nothing more than highlight the complete and total corruption of this administration--and keep that corruption constantly in the spotlight--impeachment could enhance not only the possibility for Dems in 2008, but also the possibility for strengthening laws to protect us from the lawbreakers.
Lilybelle, here is my suggestion for getting started: Forget the Leadership. Convince the Judiciary Committee.
What's the alternative? Well, the alternative seems to be getting Democrats elected so that they can generate a bunch of wealth, like Clinton did, while leaving the basic machinery of conservative economics intact. Then the Republicans can swoop back in, steal the wealth, run the country as effective kings for a while, swoop out to maintain the illusion that this is a democracy, then let Democrats get elected so that they can generate a bunch of welath, like Clinton did...
Ideas? Guy Fawkes.
Just kidding.
No, really, I am.
I wouldn't even know where to buy one of those masks. Much less 500,000 of them.
Maybe we could organize a "get the fuck out" protest in D.C.
2 or 3 million people showing up for that could have a seminal effect.
There weren't enough votes to convict Nixon until late in the game, well after the House had decided to being impeachment proceedings.
Either the Democrats think Bush is fit to serve as Preesident or they don't. If they don't, it's their duty to impeach Bush, make as much of an issue of it as possible to keep it in the public eye, and try to convince more people to come to their side.
If they do think Bush is fit to lead the country, then they should just shut the fuck up and stop whining about how hard he's screwing them.
Impeach, Impeach, Impeach.
Convicting doesn't matter. No claims of executive privilege can be made against the demands of an impeachment hearing or trial. The executive has to comply with the legislature in pursuit of its constitutional prerogative, that's one of those Clinton precedents. It's the only we'll be able to dig up the dirt on these clowns.
Everyone talks about Karla Faye Tucker, but remember the one person whose death sentence Bush did commute back in Texas?
Henry Lee Lucas.
And now Scooter Libby. Sort of a thumbnail sketch as to the operative mindset.
Actually Digby,
I think the Republicans attempts to run out the clock help Democratic pols tar the Republicans with words like cover-up.
Additionally, it forces Republicans and guys like Lieberman to publicly wrap themselves to the President...which is political suicide.
Furthermore, if the Dems don't do it they will forever in the minds of the public be tarred as wimps...a title they will have earned.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I wish one of the Democratic candidates would say that when she or he takes the oath of office, "I will put my hand on the Bible and pledge to restore honor and integrity back to the White House," just as Bush used to say in 2000. That would really shove that back in face. Wouldn't that be sweet?
Impeachment is the right thing to do. So there's an election next year? In Congress, there's always an election next year (or even worse, this year).
Need a count to charge Bush with? Well, I've been saying he should be impeached since his FISA violations became public. The USA tampering can be added on top of that. His shenanigans with Libby can be added on top of that. And, ultimately, we can add "lying to start a war" on top of all of that, because it's the most important and most neglected.
Here's the problem with people who avoid impeachment because it's "unrealistic": by taking it off the table completely, it is now Pelosi's fault that Bush has not been impeached and removed from office. If the Democrats did their job and prosecuted Bush for his crimes, it would be the fault of obstructionist Republicans that Bush was still in office. And every single one of them would have to go on TV and explain why the President doesn't have to obey the law and why it's OK to lie to start a war against a country that didn't attack us, and why torture is OK and why ignoring habeas corpus is OK.
The problem, Digby, is that you are buying into the illusion that this cannot be done. Your disconnect from conservatives makes you think that they are utterly irrational and leader-worshipping. The truth is that they are not, and many of them dislike Bush a lot, but also dislike Democrats. Being weak on the impeachment issue is not, I repeat not going to be a political winner for any Democrat. Independent voters who see Democratic weakness in face of Republican crimes are not going to be impressed.
What Pelosi is doing is appeasement, pure and simple, old-fashioned appeasement. If you think conservative minds cannot be turned against Bush, take a gander at Andrew Sullivan's blog. After Glenn Greenwald, Sullivan is the one blogger who is most focused on where the problem is: Bush (and Cheney). The problem is not that Bush is too conservative, the problem is that he is literally a budding fascist.
People really do not want a President who breaks laws. I don't know why pundits and politicians have forgotten that, but it is the most basic fact that underlies all of this.
Democrats do not seem to want to fight the tough fight, or the long fight. There seems to be an attitude that politics consists of testing the winds and setting the sails, as opposed to trying to move events in a certain direction.
The reason Bush and Cheney need to be impeached is because they are only a small part of the entire problem. When they leave, there will be a new set of right-wing authoritarian clowns to screw up things in a new way. We'll get another Scalia/Alito on SCOTUS and every civil rights law will be overturned.
It just has to stop. Getting impeachment votes on record is a step to getting it stopped. Right now Susan Collins has a high approval rating. Get her on record about what she thinks about Bush, after all of his crimes have been systematically exposed to the light of day. And then see how she fares in the 2008 election.
Avoiding impeachment because it wouldn't result in removal would be a foolish mistake by the Democrats. For starters, I would be hard-pressed to stay in the Democratic party. I cannot stomach this weakness much longer. (Maybe you don't care, but for every one of me there are thousands who feel the same way.) Moreover, this logic ignores the value impeachment had for Republicans in the past decade. Absent impeachment, Gore would have easily beaten Bush in 2000 and we would have had no Iraq war, no Justice Alito or Justice Roberts, etc., etc.
Going for impeachment means that the Democrats stand for something other than reading polls and taking the leftist-sounding stance (if it's popular already). Going for impeachment means that the Democrats are capable of long-term planning.
Why do the Democrats always appease the Republicans? After countless Clinton judicial appointees were blocked in the late 90s, why did Democrats reward Republican obstructionism by raising almost no objections to any Bush nominations? Yes, blocking GOP nominations would have been tit for tat. Duh.
(Tit for tat is, BTW, an excellent strategy in game theory. Appeasement, on the other hand, sucks balls.)
Excuse me for going on and on here, but when I see a President with a 28% approval rating, committing crimes, and commuting the prison sentence of his VP's chief of staff who has just been convicted of a crime, I have to wonder just what they won't let Bush do? Torture? No, Bush can do that. Suspend habeas corpus? Yep, he can do that. Spy on Americans without any oversight? Sure, why not? And who cares if he's spying for domestic political purposes.
Opposition parties are supposed to oppose! Failing to do so has never won anything for anybody.
Dig it, Digby!
Scream it from the rooftops, night and day, in marches on the mall - but know the monster you are trying to neutralize.
This is Nixon's Poltergeist, the monster that should have been put away in 1974. Now, it is stronger than ever before.
The situation we're in now, would make ACT III of any John Carpenter movie look like a Porky Pig cartoon.
America needs to get it right this time.
Impeach!
Indict!
Convict!
I M P A L E !
Yes, impale! All of them, after an appropriate trial, of course, but leave them up for months in the sun, so that America never forgets the day the fascists died.
http://www.donlinke.com/images/V...e_large-
x01.GIF
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Meteor Blades' suggestion seems like a good approach. It's inappropriate, actually, to hammer on Pelosi to call for impeachment, herself, because of her rather glaringly obvious conflict of interest in that particular matter.
Democrats must do everything in their power to obstruct the W. Bush regime from all activities. Shut the government down for the next 18 months and stop W. Bush from furhter destroying the country. If impeachment achieves this, great. Otherwise defund every possible executive branch activity.
Digby, as always you've nailed the problem of impeachment. I believe that it's not worth throwing away the possibility of electing a Democratic government for a chance to impeach Bush. I don't believe those American voters that voted for Bush in 2004 have the intelligence to see what's is at stake if the Democrats go down the impeachment path. Those same voters that ignored Bush's lies about WMD's, Abu Ghraib, and the outing of a NOC in 2004 by voting for Bush would turn and vote Republican if they feel the Democrats are after their president.
Investigation is a useful alternative. The principle power that Congress has over these crooks is spending, however. This is forward-looking and won't address the past crimes - that's for the next election and for historians. If the Dems in Congress stop compromising with the administration (Iraq funding?) and pass carefully crafted spending bills, maybe we can govern enough to get through 2008.
The Republican brand is being poisoned from within, and the Dems should be publicly pointing it out at every opportunity, by saying:
I'm very concerned for the Republican party, which once had principles. Too often these days they work to short-circuit the system, excuse their criminal friends, or appoint highly partisan and unqualified people to critical positions.
There's a reason the right so often rigs the game and resorts to distraction, distortion and subterfuge. Because they have to. Their ideas are too weak to persuade, so they cheat.
Haven't we all had enough of this unworthy, unamerican garbage?
Impeach YES!!!
But limit impeachment at this time to Gonzo alone.
Pelosi and Reid are correct in that impeachment of Bush and Cheney will go nowhere and might only serve to strengthen them with their base.
However, Gonzo could likely be impeached given what is currently known about the guy, and given that he is extremely unpopular even amongst the Republicans. If successfully impeached, the Dems could insist, as a condition of confirmation, that the new AG appoint special prosecutors to investigate WH wrongdoing.
Second, time is not on our side.
How about prosecuting them AFTER they're out of office?
Yes, the Clinton impeachment helped the Republicans, but I don't think it would play out the same way this time. Last time, the media narrative was anti-Clinton (because he was so vulgar); this time it would be anti-Democrats (because they are so mean).
I'm definitely torn, though, because everyone who is saying, "Being a wuss is a lousy way to show you're tough" is right. Just look at the 2006 elections. The netroots were advocating attacking the Republicans wherever possible, including Iraq, while the "sensible" approach was to let the Republicans hang themselves--the netroots were right. This time, too?
How does a failed impeachment (which this inevitably would be) not exonerate Bush? It would STRENGTHEN his hand.
arbitrista
EXACTLY what I was going to write.
Impeachment would make us feel all warm and fuzzy for a little while. But when the Senate fails to convict... not only does Bush claim vindication, but it might possibly set a precedent for future presidents.
The alternative: Congress investigates the fuck out of this commutation, and finds a way to get Cheney to testify under oath.
Jim Et Al, above, has the best and most practical approach: impeach Gonzales (the public is more than ready for this, some 60% want Bush himself to be impeached now) and make the appointment of a special prosecutor the condition for confirmation of the new AG. It's quite simple and easy to explain, say, in a phone call to your own Congressional representatives, this afternoon, today.
Nixon's impeachment, Article one
1. making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;
3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;
6. endeavoring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
8. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States...
9. endeavoring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favored treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.
Impeachable then.
But not now?
Alternative 1) Impeach Gonzales.
Alternative 2) Impeach Cheney.
"And the media will be thrilled to help the Republicans make that case."
Sadly, So!
~
I understand your arguments and would even agree to some extent. But I come down on the side of impeachment. Let's imagine what would happen when we find out that the Bushies screwed up in a ginormously egregious way and we are accused of not holding him accountable. Everyone who has been paying attention can see that he is a dangerous man. Would I put it past him to drop a nuke on Iran? Wipe out his political oppositions' bank accounts with s single keystroke? Reveal that the social security trust fund is completely empty?
We have enough to bring charges now. Comey's testimony indicates that for two weeks Bush violated the FISA law and engaged in a wiretapping scheme that was so over the top that even *Ashcroft* couldn't sign off on it. That should be enough to bring charges in the House. Impeachment investigation would find the nugget that we know is out there. But if we want to get the ball rolling and pump public opinion, go for Gonzales first. He is the firewall and the Achilles Heel. Once Gonzo is gone, the revelations will come out fast and furious.
And no I don't think that the time remaining should inhibit us. In fact, just the opposite because whatever it is they're up to, it is going to bring everyone in the nation down and we can't have that. History will judge us harshly if we pass on this.
I agree that Gonzales should be the impeachment target, but the Articles of Impeachment should be limited to crimes that Bush and Cheney are parties to as well, so that any impeachment proceeding is also a shadow trial of Bush and Cheney. I agree with Digby about the non-starter nature of war crimes and torture as impeachment issues - sadly, there is not the support in the House for such measures, just as there wasn't for Articles of Impeachment against Nixon for the Cambodian war crimes. To maintain whatever fragile coalition can be cobbled together in the HJC, the high crimes and misdemeanors must be distinct, and they must have an element that ignites public outrage or interest - as there are no blowhjobs that I am aware of at the moment, I am thinking FISA violations that are connected to spying on political opponents - people could understand the Watergate break-in of the other party's headquarters as making Tricky Dick a crook, even though it was really among the smaller of Nixon's crimes. The impeachment of Gonzales as a proxy for Bush & Cheney has the advantage of not being characterized as "providing aid & comfort for AQ in time of war", or of "paralyzing the country" - the nation has survived (I think, not sure!) a totally dysfunctional DOJ for years now, so taking out AGAG wouldn't hurt any more. Plus, the inquiry cant be shielded by executive privilege, nor short-circuited by AGAG resigning (U.S. Grant's Secretary of War resigned before impeachment, but the House & Senate carried on the proceedings.) Cheney and Bush would even have to testify, as there is no 5th Amendment protection for impeachment proceedings. I say its a no-lose proposition - we get some investigations, we can lean on the telcos to disclose what they know (the CEOs know they wont get the Scooter treatment!) and we preserve a record of wrongdoing of the Bush years. Any comments?
I think Whispers gets to the heart of the matter: "I have to wonder just what they won't let Bush do?"
Most people assume that there will be an election in 2008 and Bush and his gang will be gone. I'm not at all sure. I don't put anything past this crew.
I don't know which road is the best one to take, impeach or investigate, investigate, investigate. It seems to me that the most important thing to end up with is this bunch on trial for their crimes. It looks like the Dems are going for the Presidency and a super majority in Congress where they can do what they-we want. The question is......will they?
Impeach Gonzo. Send a message that the rule of law needs to be restored. Maybe incriminating/humiliating facts about Bush, Cheney, Rove would fall out. Finally, a new AG would have to replace him, and that could cause real problems for the WH in itself.
The GOP is going to have to break with the president at some point, and they may have to do so aggressively if they want to have any chance of winning elections again. Gonzo gives them a relatively safe target for whatever fake indignation they can muster.
Impeaching Gonzo is decidedly less nuclear.
Digby--
One legitimate purpose of going for impeachment is to disable the president from making judicial appointments, especially to the Supreme Court. He needs to be _that_ weak.
If Stevens or any of the other Sane Four leave the court before the end of W's term, the position needs to stay vacant until the next president takes office.
Precedent: Earl Warren announced he would resign in June 1968. LBJ attempted to promote his buddy Abe Fortas to be Chief. Conservatives (R _and_ D) stalled and then blocked his nomination. Vietnam had so weakened LBJ that he never got another chance. Nixon got to appoint Burger Chief Justice in 1969. You can look it up.
I think you are correct that, however richly deserved it may be, successful impeachment and conviction during the time we have left is not a realistic option. And I think it's correct that an unsuccessful attempt would likely be counterproductive.
My hope is that with a Democratic president and strong majorities in the house and senate, we can begin in 2009 to unravel all the crimes of these vicious idiots, holding them to account while at the same time laying out for all our citizens to see the pervasive emptiness and corruption of the Republican party. After all, is there anyone who imagines that there isn't a huge iceberg underneath the pervasive criminality we already see?
I think progressives are a year and a half away from a long run in power. Are we wise enough to use it well?
plus its prolly best if we keep our powder dry
It is time to begin impeachment proceedings.
All of this 2008 micro-strategy will be completely beside the point if George Bush takes it upon himself to initiate a full-scale war with Iran. At that point, every single person will just shut up and do exactly as they are told. That is what happened last time, isn't it. I would go so far as to suggest that an unprovoked attack on Iran, possibly using nuclear weapons, would almost guarantee a Republican victory in 2008.
If impeachment proceedings can stop that, then I'm all for them.
The White House has proven that they are absolutely unaccountable for anything they do, up to and including war crimes, treason and obstruction of justice. That is not at question. That is a fact. What reason do they (Bush, Cheney, Rove) have to think they will be held accountable for a nuclear war? Especially if it guarantees their continued control over the U.S. and its citizens?
That's what I'm thinking.
Impeachment. Now. To save the lives of millions of people.
First, what about Negligent Homicide for what they did to the citizens of New Orleans? Why not prosecute them for that. It seems that something like that would be enough to get republicans behind.
Second, if democrats don't do something to stand up to this abomination, how do they tell voters that they are any different than these elitist, anti-democratic scumbags in 2008? As it stands they'll have a hard time convincing me and, for the record, prior to 2004 I thought of myself as a Yellow Dog Democrat.
Not anymore, unless Russ Feingold steps up, I'm voting Peace and Freedom party.
Prof. G.E. Challenger
Noah is lying when he says Clinton committed perjury. Clinton may or may not have lied under oath (By the definition of sex given, he may not have lied).
But he did not, not, NOT commit perjury. For it to have been perjury, the lie would have had to be material to the case. Since the judge in the Paula Jones case ruled that she didn't have a case even if her claim about unwanted sexual attention was true, then testimony to corroborate her claim (the pattern of behavior exemplified by the affair with Lewinsky) was not material to the outcome of the case.
I know that lying is a strong charge to lay at Noah's doorstep, but I simply do not belive that he is unfamiliar, after all these years, with the legal threshold and definition of perjury.
Once again: Not all lying under oath is perjury.
I just have one I-word that by all rights should have everyone demanding impeachment.
IRAN.
To hell with worrying about judicial delays or election years. The Bush administration, right now, is setting things up to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran. And if that happens, we're fucked. If there is any way impeachment proceedings can put a damper on those plans, we have to try them!
You're right, of course, Digby. Impeachment of Bush or Cheney ain't never gonna happen. That's just politics which is totally corrupt in this country. Hopefully, Congress will investigate this to death and there will be prosecutions against Bush and Cheney. Congress could do something like have the US finally join the International Court of Justice and open the members of this administration face to charges of war crimes at The Hague. I also would like to see a law that allows victims of torture access to US courts to sue the high officials who approved their treatment. In other words, make the remainder of their lives a legal hell.
You don't impose costs on GOP Senators by accepting their frame. I see no cost whatsoever to impeachment, and no need for any further investigation. There is plenty of proof on the table, starting with the confessed FISA lawbreaking and including the VP on conspiracy.
See this old Time magazine article from 1973. Three articles of impeachment, straight from the mouth of James Madison:
1. Pardoning Libby. "If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner with any person, and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."
2. Retaining Gonzales. "If an unworthy man be continued in office by an unworthy President, the House can at any time impeach the President."
3. Firing the US Attorneys. "I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal."
No further investigation is needed. Who cares what the GOP Senators do? You do the right thing and you shift the frame. Then they either flip or they pay the price. If you don't do the right thing yourself, then who is going to do it for you?
My Representative voted for war money, but has now signed onto the Cheney impeachment bill. Maybe he saw where compromising his principles got him? Impeaching criminals is all upside and no downside.
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You can impeach, but not convict. I agree that this would strengthen Bush's hand. I also agree that you might be able to impeach and remove Gonzales. That would be a good first step.
But the focus, I believe should be on Cheney. I know that focusing on Cheney as evil Puppetmaster lets Bush off the hook to some degree. But you could use Fitzgerald's evidence, combined with work the WaPo's done to attack Cheney for his role in orchestrating both the Iraq war, the Plame outing and the obstruction of justice.
By going after Cheney, you might peel off enough moderate Senators to make them sweat some. Cheney can't be popular anywhere. Perhaps you initiate impeachment hearings on both Bush and Cheney and then cut a deal, whereby you drop the investigation into Bush in return for votes in the Senate against Cheney.
We get a scalp, they protect Il Duce. But you have to go after Bush at first to leverage votes against Cheney.
I don't think the commutation of Scooter's sentence is any reason for impeachment. There are probably better ones out there. That said, some people need to get on the damn ball. This group of people has completely twisted this nation's values and laws into something unrecognizable. That must be addressed. Torture and domestic spying and illegal wars are serious problems. I am now concerned that the dems in congress are just going to do their best to fix these problems without stating expressly and in no uncertain terms that they are wrong. Not just wrong, but illegal. Fixing the problems won't do any good until the entire attitude about the past 6 years changes. If people broke the law then we must do our best to hold them accountable. If impeachment fails there is still a loud voice denouncing what has been done. If the case is never made then it seems like these actions are condoned. Bush getting away with these things gives licence to those in the future to get away with them. I don't care if any of this gets him out of office earlier or if we finally decided that what he has done is abhorrent ten years after he leaves office. He is setting precedent and so are we. I just fear the precedent this country is setting is that you can totally screw up the office of the President and our system of government just as long as you are not around for too much longer. I don't care if we can impeach him inside 18 months because the damage he has done will be around long after he is gone. The damage done will remain far past 18 months. I want someone to take this seriously. I applaud the investigative work that congress is doing right now. I don't know if any investigations will lead to impeachable offenses or not but I don't think that we should rule out impeachment if it is the proper thing to do. One should be impeached for impeachable offenses. This is what is done to protect democracy. A vote against authorizing this war was a very bad political move. If we had more democrats voting against it we probably would have had a lot more lose their seats the next voting cycle. But a powerful statement would have been made and the assumption that everyone thought the war was a good idea would not have been so prevalent. Sometimes people and parties must sacrifice themselves by doing what is right. If you can't convince people of what you believe then you are not doing any kind of leading.
And then there's the bigger question. What's the alternative?
1776.
1984
Get with the UN and start War Crimes investigations. There's gotta be someone out there that can be flipped.
Isn't that part of what they are supposed to do? Why has the UN been so quiet about Iraq?
Speculating on various political outcomes for the Democratic Party is the wrong metric.
Some alternatives:
Create a special investigative task force to go in and gather what info they have left that they haven't destroyed...not going to happen, but hell, if the FBI can go into a Congressperson's office...
Purchase a few one way tickets to The Hague...let our allies in on specifics and details. In fact, don't we have enough information to send these folks up for war crimes as it stands?
Start changing policies and laws. Make Bush veto everything. Investigate the crap out of everyone and everything, and set up a few Accounting investigations to get to the bottom of the missing 8-9 billion, the contracts to Mercs and Halliburton, etc.. Litigate the shit out of them, in civil suits...all the war profiteers, etc.. In essence, make their lives a living hell, and don't let them focus on their agenda of fucking up the world anymore. Let them eat the fruits of their labor.
I'm no Constitutional authority, but Impeachment is merely charging them with a crime. Any way we can arrest them outright - deem them enemy combatants and traitors and use their own laws against them? Oh wait, that's a coup...never mind.
I agree with going after Gonzo first, both as a trial rung, and second to get at least something done that resonates with the American people, and especially its democratic wing.
The second point is that it is a way, and in the short term possibly the best way to keep smoking Bush out. When his back is against the wall, he says 'fuck you'. The American people don't like that, and the more they don't like it, the more vulnerable his Congressional supporters become. This is war of attrition, and we can win it if we keep firing.
Here are a few campaign slogans the Congressional Dems might want to try out in 08:
Congressional Democrats:
"We'd stand up for you, but it didn't focus group well."
Congressional Democrats:
"We'd stand up for you, but they'd call us bad names."
Congressional Democrats:
"If we won't stand up to Bush, what makes you think we'd ever stand up for you?"
Congressional Democrats:
"If we won't stand up for the Constitution, what makes you think we'd ever stand up for you?"
Congressional Democrats:
"Sure we're cowards, but you don't have any other choice."
Congressional Democrats:
"We promise to fight for you next time."
Congressional Democrats:
"Please, don't hurt us!"
Congressional Democrats:
"We'd stand up for you, but our consultant didn't think it was a good idea."
Congressional Democrats:
"We'd stand up for you, but you'll vote for us even if we don't so it's not worth our time"
Congressional Democrats:
"We take your votes for granted."
Our government has a built-in solution for the problems we have with the current executive branch: Impeachment.
Investigations don't mean squat if the Administration can just run out the clock/flat out refuse to hand over evidence/pardon everyone involved when they leave office.
If the Congress will not impeach the AG, the VP, and the President, they do not deserve to represent ME (I can't speak for any of you), regardless of Party/how many stern letters and memos they churn out.
All this tactical thinking and blustering "but, but, but..." BS is like watching a 13 year old boy coming up with excuse after excuse *not* to ask little Mary to the homecoming dance because he is AFRAID. This is all about FEAR, and just proves without a shadow of doubt for independent voters/conservatives who may object to the way the current administration is acting that there is no point in voting for Democrats, because they are...
1)Afraid.
2)Cowards.
3)Worthless.
I've lurked here for a long time, I've always enjoyed your writing Digby, I'm a life long Liberal and Democrat, and I know I must sound over the top, but MAN AM I PISSED OFF ABOUT THIS and I'm *not* pissed a Bush for doing what we all knew he was going to do, I'm pissed at my own Party for not doing what they *NEED* to do.
Thanks for your time and your blog. Keep it up...
-Alex B.
Although I have been calling for impeachment at every opportunity for the last two years, time is indeed running out and I am no longer doing that. But I do think the Democratic congress can do nothing better than to spend the next two years investigating and holding hearings and bringing all the dirt into the light.
It's time to put aside comity and start getting medieval on their asses. Start by referring to Bush/Cheney what they are, corrupt, criminal and unAmerican. I'm with Andrew Sullivan when he says he doesn't want to see Cheney impeached, he wants to see him in prison. I would throw Bush in their with him.
Let Conyers be Conyers! Speaker Pelosi - tear down this wall!
Impeach the fuckers. Majority vote, ram it through the House.
Why? Because not impeaching Bush inoculates any GOP president who's marginally less corrupt from impeachment in the future.
This is all too depressing. Digby has a point, though it is almost profane to utter it. The impotence of what is either prudent in the Leahy+band-of-dedicated-lawyers sense (or Obey scolding ignorant liberals), or passionate in the "why aren't we out protesting" sense, truly burns my eyes. KO's promised special comment tomorrow night will be like something out of a waking nightmare. The promise of a Democratic candidacy diffuses any energy the public might have to organize an effective resistance, and the candidates themselves would go about the business of putting out fires and healing divisions were they president. And that is not to say that they're wrong. But, like this post, it is almost profane. Thom Hartman sounded like a complete idiot on his show today wrestling with some lowlife sophist from Newsmax (or some exact equivalent). It's like he doesn't know.
The fact is that it is profane to be speaking about what is prudent after so many years of being suckered by people-who-know-better. It is also profane to shout from the rafters when there are no rafters to shout from. It is also profane to organize conventions instead of protests, liberal mixers instead of massive strikes.
Finally, it is profane that I am saying this. It's like poetry after Auschwitz.
It maybe better to go silent and then jump when fate delivers an opportunity. All this talk and all this political maneuvering, it's all about losing in perpetuity.
I'm with Whispers. We've long since passed the time when impeachment was a pie-in-the-sky fantasy for those of us bearing witness to the criminal enterprise that is this administration.
Digby's right, of course. As with any "nuclear" option, there's simply no way to predict the outcome. But really, what else do we have? This is the tool the founders gave us, gave our representatives to deal with despotism on the part of the executive. I hear people on all sides lamenting how impeachment "sucks up all the air," but what can this congress hope to accomplish in the face of obstruction of such truly historic proportions? No. If you love this country, you fight and you do it with the weapons you have.
These guys are monumental fuckups, and they tend to fuck up even worse when the pressure's on. If stopping this means proposing the idea of president Pelosi to the American people, then lets get going on it.
that meteor blades post on daily kos and in comments above is right on! to me the downside of not moving to impeach (with focus on the illegal surveillance of americans disclosed 12-05) is that it further disheartens democratic voters and grassroots workers--like me. if more D candidates had forcefully taken an anti-iraq occupation position at the start of 2006, i believe we would have an even stronger majority in congress. same thing goes for getting action to take down the wildly unpopular and lawbreaking pres and vp now.
What I would like to see is one of the Presidential candidates make a statement to the effect that:
a. This action carries a strong implication that it is a intended to reward the behavior for which Libby was convicted. Which would imply that there is a coverup of the involvement of other people in the executive branch. As such it casts a shadow on the rule of law and the honor of the executive branch.
b. To erase that shadow the candidate pledges that, if elected, they will remove presidential secrecy orders and executive privilege claims for any document requests in investigations related to this.
c. They call on all other candidates to make a similar pledge.
It would feel good to expose these criminals while in office; it would feel good to kick them out of office and punish them; but what is essential is that history records the truth and condemns the behavior.
If the Dems hadn't been such cop-outs on taking office, we could have had impeachment articles drafted long ago.
A1 is right - unless we do whatever we can to tie them up every way imaginable, we will be at war with Iran, and the Bushies may well drop nukes. Trial by Congress is not trial in the judiciary, and high crimes and misdemeaners is what they judge it to be. Technically legal things well qualify if they've done the to the destriment of the country.
Though Clinton was exonerated, the Rethugs managed to paint themselves as winners anyway for being active and standing up for their (supposed) principles. Sweet God, if they could roll over when their party's president was persecuted for a blow job, they damn well better stand up when there are real crimes involved.
God damn it, when someone is beating the shit out of you, you want some one to obstruct what they're doing. The Republicans are on so many fronts assaulting the U.S. and the world. We are chickenshits undeserving of the ideal the Founders passed on if we just cower with "well, it wouldn't be feasible." Shit! Neither was 1776.
Investigation into obstruction of justice seems to me to be the way to go. Call the appropriate witnesses and see where it leads.Call Cheney & if he won't appear consider impeachment.
Ever since I saw Frank Luntz crowning Hillary the winner of the most recent Democratic debate on Tavis Smiley's show, I have had a bigger worry: that the would-be plutocracy has decided to push H.R.Clinton into the Democratic nomination.
It is not that I am opposed to Clinton -- she's not my favorite Democratic candidate, but I would vote for her with enthusiasm over any and all of the Republicans.
But, I have noticed that for all of the failures of the Bush Presidency, few have affected the very Rich, and few of the enablers of Bush -- except for a very few, extremely corrupt Congressmen -- have suffered either. The corporate Right-wing Media and its store-bought, brain-dead punditocrisy is firmly in place. (David Brooks and Timothy Noah appear to know who signs their paychecks.)
So, now Rupert Murdoch is holding Clinton fund-raisers and Frank Luntz has discovered the Hillary is "not shrill" she's "passionate". Good to know.
I am sure Clinton imagines in her own mind, that she can win, after winning she can govern effectively, as her husband did, and do good in the world. I'd like to believe that, too, and if I have to vote for her, that is what I will believe.
But, I doubt that is the calculation made by Frank Luntz or Rupert Murdoch. They see that Clinton has very high "negatives" as they say -- polls estimate that close to half the electorate says it will never vote for her -- a preponderance of low-information "independents" hate her. So, maybe a likeable Republican could beat her, or, more likely, prevent a landslide.
And, Clinton is pretty conservative in her politics. She's unlikely to abandon the corporate Imperium in the process of extricating the U.S. from Iraq. She's unlikely to bring back 70% marginal rates on high income. She's already proven that she can't pass national health insurance. Given the inevitable fall-out from the Bush presidency, how hard would it be to wreck her Administration, make her into a Jimmy Carter and destroy the brand of the Democratic Party for a generation?
We can always indict and convict them after the fact. Right now we need investigations galore. I wanna see who they surveilled, I want names dates and numbers called. If there are too many John Smiths and not enough Hamed Saleems on the list, it will register.
Seeing a liberal blogger make excuses for not impeaching what can arguably called the most corrupt administration in this country's history is simply breathtaking to behold. As others have stated, this really boils down to one word: accountability, both for its actions so far and the very real fear that if Bush and especially Cheney are not impeached and then hopefully thrown out of office, that this administration will start bombing innocent Iranian civilians. Does Digby believe that Article II Section 4 [the impeachment clause] should be repealed? If so, then Digby should be reminded that the Founding Fathers put the impeachment clause in the U.S. constitution for a very specific reason, so that those in our government should be held accountable for their actions and, despite Digby's apparent belief, that they should not be seen as being above the law.
I keep asking myself, what's in it for me? I got plenty of power.
My question is -- can they be held accountable after they've left office?
If they can, then I see no reason to risk the blowback from impeachment. Try, convict and sentence them when there's *zero* chance of a presidential pardon. If they can't -- if they've got a free pass come 1/20/09 -- then I think impeachment may be the only alternative.
Impeach.
Start the process, and more evidence of misdeeds is bound to turn up, given the widespread nature of their work. The Republican caucus may have tribal bounding to to bring them together, but the elections mean that a unpopular President getting some popular accountablity will result in those in the way losing their seats.
Left in office, Bush will issue a blanket pardon at the end of his term to "those that broke the law in their effort to protect America", and those fuckers will never see justice. Just like Poppy did.
We have to try, even if we fail, we still have to try.
Short term, the Democrats need to use this as the centerpiece of their 2008 campaign. If the Democrats can't use this aggressively to elect a President and sizable majorities in Congress, we will at least have learned that the real problem isn't the Republican Party.
Long term, use the power of the internets to create a citizen's committee to investigate and implement the Constitutional changes needed to convert America to a parliamentary form of government.
Without a clear-cut high crime, impeachment makes no sense. If Bush survives it, which is almost certain, (or runs out the clock, even more certain,) he will emerge having been "cleared" of wrongdoing. Bush is desperately trying to hold the support of his base. Impeachment would galvanize them. We need them splintered in order to take care of job one, which is to get the US out of Iraq. Anything that distracts from Iraq helps Bush and increases the odds that he will be able to stay the course. Don't let your rage get the better of you.
Hey yeah, I've got an idea. How about we stop doing political calculus and do the right thing? Crimes should be investigated and criminals punished. It's because of all this careful posturing that many people are convinced that Democrats have no principles. Keep doing the right thing long enough, generation after generation, and people might get the idea that you'll do the right thing.
Enough with the Hamlet, with the "cause and means" cogitating. Measured responses, more evidence gathering, endless "reasoned discourse" have left Progressives just as impotent (in terms of being able to remove corrupt executives from power) as they were in 2000 when an election was stolen in broad daylight and no one could stop the machine.
No more talk. Impeach not just Bush and Cheney: Impeach "business as usual." I'll vote for you, whoever you are.
+++
You've been a lesser of evils demo way too long, Digby.
There is no alternative to impeachment. Most fights in life do not carry guarantees of "victory". (Almost always, guaranteed "victory" is just another lesser evil loss.)
Fight them everywhere, every day. Hardly a demo perspective, alas.
I hate demos more than I hate right-wingers. Right-wingers are what they are. They can't help it. Demos are lesser evil republicans who know exactly what they are doing. I hate them.
Yeah, impeach Abu first. It keeps the investigations going and takes the term "impeachment" out for an extended spin -- that in itself has value as a mass educational initiative.
The main thing (and I did call my rep, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, earlier today) is to pursue strategies that weaken Bush. This all has more than the whiff of 1974, where the main effect of the proto-impeachment of Nixon was to straight-jacket him and bring the Vietnam War to a rapid conclusion.
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1. Thanks Digby for your perennially excellent work.
2. I think one fact is getting lost, if Bush didn't commute or pardon him, Scooter was going to open negotiations with Fitz to stay out of jail.
3.Let's make Cheney really regret all the, "no underlying crime," bull that he made his minions spread.
4. Of course Scooter will plead the Fifth to either Congress or Fitzgerald, but the American public really needs to see and hear Scooter taking the Fifth again and again and again. That cripples the "no underlying crime" sound byte.
5. IMVHO, that "sets the table" for impeaching Cheney.
Steve Soto has an excellent entry today at theleftcoaster.com saying that Bush did not pardon Libby because that would have eliminated his Fifth Amendment privilege against incriminating himself before Congressional investigations.
Soto suggests that Bush thinks he has free reign because the Democrats unilaterally took impeachment off the table. Soto said Democrats should initiate impeachment proceedings as a hammer hanging over Bush, even if they do not at the moment intend to pull the trigger.
Makes sense to me.
The point about developing the evidence is well-taken. In that connection, one important role for impeachment not on your list (which I take to be actual removal of Bush/Cheney, and forcing Republican Senators to make a politically damaging vote for acquittal) is bypassing the question of executive privilege in particular, and the courts in general, in developing the evidence. You bring the evidence on the required date to your trial in the Senate to convince that jury that you didn't commit the malfeasance in office you're charged with, or you lose your job (or at least force Republican Senators to vote acquittal on charges the defendent chooses not to try to refute). This preliminary, evidence-gathering, stage would presumably involve impeaching some lesser official, not the President, with the idea that the evidence gathered would advance the long-term effort to get Bush himself. Impeaching Gonzalez over the US Attorneys would be the obvious place to start.
The other obvious place to start down the evidence-gathering path, that would also work on rallying public opinion, would be Congressional investigations of Gitmo in particular, and the American gulag in general. No, the mistreatment of the detainees is, sadly, probably not by itself a public opinion blockbuster. But I wouldn't say the same about the pointlessness of that mistreatment. Summoning detainess from Gitmo to appear before Congress would be a powerful way to start moving public opinion back form the erroneous idea that sacrificing common decency has, in any way, made us safer. Convert public opinion on this point, and Bush becomes targetable as a war criminal.
The other approach out there to rein in Bush now, is to start talking about his legal vulnerability in the post-January 2009 environment. When a new, hopefully Democratic, President takes office, three things happen at one stroke to greatly magnify Bush's legal exposure. He loses his official immunity. He loses control of the US Attys. Most importantly, he loses control of the evidence, including the ability to decide if executive privilege claims will be made. But even if he couldn't be prosecuted until February 2009, the threat of what will happen then can be used to limit his power right now.
I think the smart play would be to avoid talking directly about prosecuting him and others in his administration after they leave office. We should speak instead of taking a Truth and Reconciliation Commission approach to the problem of the various illegalities Bush has pursued while in office. The idea is that we don't wish to punish underlings caught up in a lawless system due to their honest misunderstandings of what is allowable in a time of crisis, folks like the FBI agent on the street, the battalion commander in the field, etc. This will encourage these folks to come forward with the dirt on their political masters that will get themselves off the legal hook, while getting the political masters on the hook. Let the other side demand what amounts to "amnesty" for the political masters. If the national debate even gets close to being held on these terms, Bush will probably resign, but will surely be much impeded in his ability to commit ongoing crimes.
R.A.C.- By clear cut crimes, do you mean crimes that will pass through a media filter?
When you say he will be cleared of wrongdoing, do you mean by the media?
Lastly, what do you think could possibly shake this administration from staying the course? Let me answer - nothing.
Antonius (the better angel) - Who is going to do this? Me and you? The Senate judiciary committee? A flash mob? Digby and friends?
I think this is lost and we are lost. I think talking about solutions is a salve for the pathos that ought to be settling uneasily in our hearts.
I'm surprised you'd take this approach, digby. Isn't this the blog where I generally read that Democrats should surprise us and take principled stands -- that that will convince a country that they stand for something instead of that they'll go for anything?
Even just on tactics, impeachment is a winner. It dominates discussion, it drives investigations, it keeps the bad guys back on their heels -- and for a good cause this time, not for perjury about a marital infidelity. Parties have generally done well after pursuing impeachment, regardless of the merits of the case.
But the merits of this case matter a great deal. It isn't just tactics. We have to defend the Constitution of the United States, it's the only good thing left in DC. Whether we win or lose, we have to say we tried to save what the Constitution is meant to do, or we don't deserve to have it. That's simply all there is to it.
Impeachment can assist and inform investigations -- but investigations aren't an end in themselves. Accountability is. Impeachment is the only accountability left for the Bush administration. I think it's crucial for this country that we try to impose it.
A principled stand is time sensitive. Consider Dick Lugar. Collective guilt has overwhelmed us and has made both action and inaction profane. Time heals all wounds, though there will be considerable scarring.
"And then there's the bigger question. What's the alternative?"
Bush declares Marshall Law, desolves Congress and declares himself president for life... Would that surprise you...?
What would our fearless Democrats do about that... Probably nothing....
"Give me liberty or give me cash..."
If there's no chance of a conviction in the Senate, and thus no chance of prying Bush out of the WH early, and a failed impeachment risks strengthening the Repubs, then maybe repeated censure motions is the way to go. This keeps the focus on the R members of Congress, where it needs to be if Bush is untouchable. Each motion, every one a roll-call vote of course, forces them to repeatedly choose between defending the indefensible, which their Dem challengers will use against them, or voting against Bush, which will piss off what's left of the R base.
Of course, Antonius, once they are once again private citizens Bush & Cheney, prosecution would certainly be on the table, to coin a phrase.
The potential downside of politics as usual is the establishment of dictatorship. The potential downside of impeachment is a bad day at the polls.
Hmmmmm. The question in the year 2027: "What did you do, Daddy and Mummy, when the dictatorship was established?" What's the answer? Well, loss of habeas corpus, implementation of torture, government spying, use of the "Justice" infrastructure for suppression of dissent -- we figured none of those were as important as playing it safe for the next election. We couldn't risk stopping the dictator.
Doesn't work for me.
1,000,000 Dead Iraqi Civilians
Wait'll you see what I do to Iran.
Antoinus and a few others have it right. Enough spinless calculation. This administration is laughing out loud as they publicly boast about break the law while nothing is done. This is F**king pathetic. Without the Constitution we have nothing. They laugh in the face of the Constitution. They Impeach for lying about a blow job against public opinion, and the Dems wont't investigate the serious crimes of a 28% pres? WTF? How many more will die for their political comfort?
I'm voting republican just to speed the inevitable demise of this country so we can start over sooner.
Once again,
It time to stop viewing the impeachment process as if it's the third rail of politics!
Digby says:
Elizabeth Holzman is dreaming if she thinks her charges could ever get a majority vote
When the first bill to impeach Nixon was filed, ONLY 25 MEMBERS OF CONGRESS SUPPORTED THE IDEA AT ALL. He was after all, onlt to years prior electe by a landslide, unlike George W., and was very popular back then. Despite it all, hearing were still held, the crimes were exposed (on TV no less), without all the spin, and the public and Congress turned. Bush and Cheney deserve the same attention and would get the same result, especially given their current approval ratings. I also think their crimes are much much worse then Nixon's. After all, if John Dean of Watergate fame write a book called, Worse Than Watergate, shouldn't our bells and whistles being going off ny now? I mean the guy LIVED Watergate!
Digby also says: time is not on our side. The executive privilege claims are going to take forever to litigate.
The Nixon impeachment process took eight months and the Clinton impeachment process ONLY TOOK FOUR MONTHS! With all the available evidence now, I'm confident it won't take as long as that. Even if it were as long as Nixon's, we'd still have an extra few months to spare (if impeachment investigations were to begin tomorrow).
Besides, I often hear what's the point in pursuing if all they have left is 2 months left in their term? The point is IT DOESN'T MATTER at what point or how much longer they have to serve to make sure our elected leaders do not overstep their bounds in office. Saying we'll let elections take care of that is letting them off the hook, as well as the Dems from the "supposed" fear of what it will do to them in the next election.
I beleive elections and legislation will always be there for us to tackle and they'll still cotinue after we die. But it can't if we don't have a sound system of checks and balances and by not addressing it, it remains the same and the problem gets buried under the rug. Is it something I look forward to do?
NO! It's the last thing I would want to do! But it's also something at this point in our nation's history that it is necessary and appropriate action to take.
20-30 years from now when the dust settles and we have a clearer idea what kind of damage Bush & Cheney did to our democracy, I suspect people wil wonder, 'why didn't our generation do anything to stop the egregious governmental abuses by the Bush Administration? I'd like to tell my kids and grandkids that at least we tried and/or we didn't let our selfish self-interests get in the way. We took the moral high ground, despite what all the nay-sayers said, and we stood by for what we thought deep down was the right and moral thing to do at a critical point in our time.
I don't want my generation to go down like the "good Germans" did back in WWII. I want us to stand up for what is right, despite all the uphill battles we face. If I know we went down fighting an honest fight and stood up to the abuses of the Bush Adminsitration, I'll feel better that we all made a conscious and meaningful effort to defend our democracy from a true and utter despotic adminstration.
And finally, Digby writes: Finally, there is the most important and indisputable fact that Bush and Cheney will never be convicted in the Senate. This isn't the GOP of 1974 and they will never cross over in enough numbers.
As far as I remember, there were only 58 Democrats in the Senate in 1974 --NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH TO EVICT NIXON--and the House went ahead with impeachment ANYWAY. They weren't uptight and worried about how this as going to make them look like in the end In fact, it made them stronger, not weaker. And Carter got elected president too! So just because the numbers "don't appear" to be there, doesn't mean they'll change their minds in the end. Especially when they realize that supporting the pres and vice-pres will be detrimental in their re-election bids. Nobody wants to be associated with crooks to their legacy!
I'm torn.
The idea that, under an impeachment trial "executive privilege" wouldn't hold any water is very appealing. It would mean if it held up, that all the stuff Bush keeps secret could be brought to light, and impeachment would become a no-brainer. I fear though that with Bush, no court order or congressional subpoena will suffice.
He will defy the courts in a way not seen since the birth of the republic. He will declare the ruling unconstitutional and assert the Executive branch right to protect itself from the "tyranny of the other branches"
Perhaps that act will galvanize the impeachment movement. I hope so anyway, I'd like the idea for Congress to confront the admin and take the risk of being stonewalled because that might finally get the public's notice.
I'm leaning more and more towards throwing the impeachment dice and hoping we get 7's. But I do think it's valuable for progressives to understand this is a gamble. We might lose, and lose badly out of this.
There are no certain outcomes here, and anyone pretending to know is lying or delusional.
No dice,
Digby addressed why those impeachments moved as fast as they did. This case would require a lot more investigation to make it compelling to the whole nation, and not just us politics nerds who pay a lot of attention to this stuff.
The Saturday Night Massacre really did Nixon in, and Bush hasn't yet has such a thing.
I dunno what to think. For one thing, the public's capacity for outrage has been stretched to the point of near-apathy. Illegal pre-emptive war? Oh dear. Torture as policy? That's bad. Doing away with Habeas Corpus? Gosh. Commuting the sentence of a convicted felon to save Cheney's ass? Scuse me, I think it's time for American Idol.
I tend to believe that it's time for the Democrats to do something, anything, even if it's doomed to failure. I'm not sure the nation can survive this steady, numbing, drip, drip, drip of constitutional and ethical atrocities.
"But even so, that's not necessarily a good enough reason not to do it. It could be useful, if only to tie the administration up in knots until they leave the scene."
Digby, you disappoint me. Why did the Republicans begin impeachment against Clinton and then acquit? Simple, they didn't really want him gone. They didn't want Gore to become president and run as an incumbent. Better to drag Clinton through the mud and have some stick to Gore.
Dems should do the same thing. Impeachment will stick to the Republican nominee like the dirtiest mud. You are right that it will fail, but it doesn't matter. It will do the job.
Also, while Bush is on the ropes, he is still president and he can still take this nation into another war, this time against Iran. Mark my words, if they aren't impeached they will take us all to hell with them.
Kucinich is right. Cheney is the head of the snake and must be removed first. Bush will be neutered if Cheney is impeached, even if the votes aren't there.
Is it possible to issue blanket pardons - or pardon it forward (I forgive you for all the crimes you might ever have done in my service sort of thing)? I'm hoping not. In which case, I am in favor of preparing the most cases possible in the criminal court, with charges to be brought Jan 21, 2009. With the censure, censure hearings there should be lots of material to work with.
I am also in favor of a new presidential pardon ammendment - s/he can still pardon, but pardons/clemancy for those in the executive branch can only be granted 4 years after the grantee has left office. That way they see at least some jail time before they can get pardoned. Of course we should not pass this until we get habeaus corpus back.
I'm with whispers and the others who echoed and elaborated on the need to impeach. As grayslady mentioned, impeachment did not hurt the Republicans at all in 2000. They gained the presidency and majorities (albeit slim) in the Senate and House. This allowed them to begin their complete takeover of our government.
However, the two-faced jack in the deck is the media. Their complicity in the Republican power-grab is no longer debatable. Is the alternative media now strong enough to counter them? What do you say, Dig?
I think the most important thing is to ensure that we have an election in 2008 and that it is conducted fairly. If we do and it is, the GOP will be on its collective ass for a generation. But surely they know that, and so the danger is very real.
Dan D:
I'm not clear on how this is different from Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon used his authority and presidential prerogative to obstruct an investigation. Less than 24 hours ago, Bush did exactly the same thing.
And I like the censure votes. I made the similar argument here that the Dems should force votes on defining issues over and over. Make the GOP defend the indefensbile. Over and over. Then hang it around their necks.
Imoeach Abu first, yes. Ten go after Big Dick. By then Bush will be all gone. And make sure that if he does pardon them, the next President will rescind the pardon, ha! For crimes against the state I think Gitmo might still be useful (as a threat at least).
And then we'll go after him.
A pistol shot, at five oclock, the bells of heaven ring.... One of my fav Dead songs; always found some solace in it, tho I never quite knew what it meant. Little did I know I would be reliving those ancient years, the 60s, with a jerkoff Prez that missed those lessons. Yeah and now I have a son fighting Dick's war instead of listening to Dick's Picks. Don't know what I will do if my son "comes home in a box".
With respect to impeachment, remember who actually has to act. Can anyone here seriously say they think the current crop of Democratic leaders have the spine and muscle to get articles of impeachment passed. If you do then you're far more optimistic/idealistic than I.
While bitching and moaning amongst the faithful has unquestionable cathartic value, the sad fact is that Bush, Cheney, et. al. will never receive justice. Thus we, each and everyone of us must take personal responsibility to make their enablers pay the price for the administration's misdeeds.
If you have Republican representatives in congress call them, today, and let them know that the president's actions reflect poorly on them personally. Likewise, at the state and local levels. Frame the issue as a matter of disrespect for the rule of law, e.g., "I thought your party stood for law and order, I thought the president had a higher moral standard than what is merely legal." Know the facts, be polite, be firm. If they try to obsfucate, point out the disingenuity of their argument. If they advance the "Clinton did it" false equivalency, use their own words and actions from the Clinton era against them. If you are fortunate enough not to have Republican representation call those among the Republican leadership who have shown signs of further national ambition. Talk to your conservative family members and friends. Ask them, "do you favor the rule of law, equally applied, or not." The issue can be reduced that simply.
It is long past time for honorable Republicans--yes, there are a few left--to stand up to the president and say unequivocally, "Enough."
The president is dragging the Republican party down. Self preservation is something every politician understands viserally and it is a powerful motivating force. However, these politicians will need to hear the message individually from constituents that they are being held responsible for the president's misdeeds.
We may not be able to hold Bush accountable, but we may be able to put the brakes on to point of significantly limiting further damage.
Congressional service should not be about doing the easy thing or the expedient thing, or avoiding the complicated thing.
It should be about doing the right thing, come what may.
Why the hell are they in office?
To look the other way while crimes are being committed?
To dismiss all the shenanigans as business as usual?
To keep their mouths shut so that they can have a nice long career filled with opportunities to look the other way while crimes are being committed?
This whole thing is about the very heart of what our country represents.
They cannot let these corrupt, lying bastards walk away without doing anything.
Even if they lose, they will be educating the American public about corrupton and demonstrating that they stand for something.
If they do nothing, they look like they are too timid to stand up to those bastards.
Impeachment is the only option.
The alternative is to investigate them to death in the House and Senate. Keep demanding that they turn over data and force their staff to come and testify. Have the executive privilege fight early and often and force the courts to deal with it.
This is, IMO, exactly correct. Forget impeachment, just get the good stuff -- investigation that overloads the memory hole until it all comes pouring out. Tar 'em with it until the entire party can't move from the widespread revelation of corruption.
Impeachment would be for us the equivalent of Bush going into Iraq -- a massive strategic blunder. Law enforcement, people, law enforcement.
And I know, Scooter proves that no conviction will stick until Dubya is out of office. Every pardon or commutation will only make things worse for them -- the public may forget Scooter, but a whole string of 'em gets a lot harder to ignore.
Finally, as long as there's a Democratic president in 2009, there'll be no one to issue pardons once the Chimp is gone. Anyone for shipping the lot of 'em to the Hague?
--
Roland X
Hope is a phoenix
This is exactly why people see the dems as weak. They are. Impeachment procedings should begin imediatly because the Constitution demands it. There is direct evidence of numerous serious crimes here, the pres admittied to some directly on TV for christ sake! NOTHING else matters untill they are investigated and the light is shining brightly on their crimes regardless of the final outcome. WTF could the dems possibly be wating for with their dry powder (remember Alito?). All this calculation is pathetic. You impeach NOW because it is right and because of principle. There is no downside to rightness and principle.
Digby-
"The executive privilege claims are going to take forever to litigate."
A very important distinction to be made is that an impeachment trial is not the same as a court trial.
There are two ways this could go.
It looks like the Bush Administration is pushing the Democrats, by defying those subpoenas, to declare the Bush administration in contempt thereby bringing it to court.
That would be an unwise route for Congress to go, since the DC Federal Courts are conservative and the chances of a judge ruling in the Bush administration's favor and an Appeals Court to uphold that ruling is very high. The odds are in their favor if it goes to court.
Now to the reason why I highlighted your quote...
Part of the process of Impeachment entails the House Judiciary to become the Impeachment Committee. The Impeachment Committee is constitutionally empowered to investigate presidential and administration wrongdoing. Because of that special distinction, the president has no right to claim "executive privilege" when asked to turn over documents or having to provide officials to testify.
gasp.
digby, i'm afraid you're very wrong about this. i've spent the last 48 hours trawling the pardon caselaw -- aside from civil penalties and impeachment, there's literally NOTHING limiting the pardon power in any form. NOTHING.
if bush isn't under impeachment from the election until the day he leaves office, there is NOTHING preventing him from retroactively AND prospectively pardoning every single current and former member of his administration. nothing.
unless you want to hear Bush talking about his general pardon on january 8th, 2009 as a necessary measure to prevent political witchhunts and preserve national unity, there isn't any option but impeachment.
commutation of scooter's sentence is itself nuclear. it shows that they're willing to use the bomb. if we don't react, we lose. there will never be any accountability. none.
For me, resignation! I can visualize Bush and Barney on that last walk to the copter on the WH lawn. The news corp will follow him and we'll see Air Force One land where ever they land for Crawford. I will bet that Laura will be in an undisclosed location by that time! Finally, the perfect ending to the biggest nightmare this country has ever known. Beginning later that same day, excavation of the records, papers and all remaining traces of this corrupt gestapo!
Let's be clear:
Clinton getting a blow-job helped elect Bush in 2000.
Impeaching Bush for crimes he clearly committed will help elect more Democrats in 2008. People want backbone!
There is no downside to this.
Prosecute him for violating FISA. Last I heard, that was a felony.
Dan D:
There is a much easier case for investigations into impeachment, than it was under Nixon. Hell, if John Dean of Watergate fame can write a book called WORSE THAN WATERGATE, shouldn't our bells & whistles be going off RIGHT NOW??? I mean the guy LIVED Watergate!
I think it would be harder to impeach and convict Bush because the GOP didn't have the right wing misinformation machine like they do now with right-wing talk radio, CROX News, Drudge, and the like, but that doesn't mean we should just throw up our arms and give up. I don't care if we impeach or not impeach BUT WE HAVE TO GO FORWARD! This is too unique of a time in our history NOT to persue investigations into impeachment.
Screw the elections, screw what it may do to us in 2008. LET IT GO! Win or lose......FIGHT FOR THE DAMN HEALTH OF OUR DEMOCRACY!
I don't think impeachment is a good idea. Once the inevitble "acquittal" in the Senate occurs, the Right Wing Noise Machine will start screaming that the failure to convict "proves" that Bush/Cheney "did nothing wrong." The media would repeat this line as a question all of the time, as in "Does the failure to get a conviction mean that the Bush Administration did nothing wrong? Some people think so..."
Anything that enables this criminal "administration" to get off of the hook would be a travesty.
A-men Dice!
Right on George!
One benefit of impeachment - it would get even more under Bush's skin that he is a miserable failure. That NYT article where he is inviting historians over to try and get some feedback on other presidents and the "nature of good and evil" shows that he is desperately searching for something, anything to latch onto that will allow him to stay in his state of denial.
Being impeached, even if not followed through, helps keep him firmly in the Worst President Ever category. For all time.
And for the Dems, it shows that we will do it when justified.
Antonius,
Make your case, then. Investigation and impeachment are not the same thing. Impeachment happens after you have a case built. If you accuse someone (even Bush) based on your suspicions of his motives, rather than hard evidence, how is that "doing the right thing?" Where, precisely, is the impeachable offense here? The two most impeachable policies of the Bush administration, in my opinion, were warrantless wiretapping and the elimination of habeas corpus for enemy combatants. I view them as unconstitutional, but Congress essentially rubber stamped both. Hopefully, they will be rolled back, but neither is likely to provide a basis for impeachment.
I'm all for aggressive investigation and oversight, along with contempt of Congress charges if Bush stonewalls subpoenas, but at this point, impeachment is a pipe dream.
digby, your questions are smart, and dead on. There is no obvious answer to this conundrum. I agree that the politics matter. We've done the "right thing" over and over, and for our virtue, we have Iraq. Next up, Iran? My question is how do we tie these yahoos up so as to reduce the damage they can do between now and Jan '09, without jeporadizing the Democrats? Which I think, is the same question you're asking.
Well, I"m with Digby and anyone else who sees a failed impeachment as very weakening to the Dems.
I have a suggestion for a completely different investigation of Cheney which might bear fruit.
The area? His health. Cheney is obviously very sick, and he is incapable of discharging the duties of President, should Bush fail.
I think that hammering on the subject of Cheney's physical health, and also on the subject of Bush's drinking and mental health would be good tactics.
Is it dirty pool? Maybe just a little, but I would bet that an examination of the public record alone would turn up evidence that Cheney is unfit for office.
How about it?
Republicans HATE to look weak. It's much worse for Cheney to be portrayed as a sick, doddering fool than as Darth Vader.
Bush just screwed every Republican who was looking at a close election in 16 months. Now, they're looking at unemployment.
Would any of these reps/senators be interesting in getting even? Those would be the extra votes for impeachment.
If they vote for impeachment, they'd be burning their bridges with the GOP. So they'd have to be asked on the QT, and the Dems would have to give them each something that would set them up after next November. (Including possibly helping some change parties and win their elections--which is quite a price.) And it might be easiest to get it set up in about a year, and then do the honors in the lame duck period right after the '08 election.
Just a thought.
* * *
And the alternative? I always like the thought of this administration collectively doing time better than them just leaving a month or two early. So I'd like criminal charges all 'round, thank you. The next administration is going to have to have ongoing investigations anyway, as part of the main job of the Executive Branch for the next decade or so: Cleaning up this administration's messes.
Nice if we could have both, though.
As much as I wish impeachment were possible, I don't see it happening, one, and two, I believe it would be a diversion from the alternative, which is to swarm the Republicans, launching as many investigations as possible and plausible, and just attacking them on every front. It's not just Bush, after all, and it's not just impeachable offenses, if such can be found and presented successfully. It's everything.
Our weapons are hearings, investigations, the power of subpoena, the written word, and out diffuse energy spread through the blogosphere. Impeachment would concentrate energies, turn the show into one run in Washington, D.C. and catalyze a dualism -- are you for or against impeachment -- that would be distracting.
The battle to be won is political, on many front. In sports parlance, it's time to run up the score against Them.
Congress did not rubber stamp wiretaping. Few if any in congress know the true extent of the wirtapping. There is so much "hard evidence" of wrong doing in the public record alone one can only imagine what would be turned up by an actual investigation. The aggressive investigations you are in favor of would certainly turn some "hard evidence " up. Greater support for impeachment would follow.
Judge Reggie Walton via New York Times and the AP-"CIA-Leak-Confusion"
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush forced the CIA leak case into uncharted legal territory when he commuted the prison sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby, a federal judge said Tuesday.
Bush eliminated Libby's 2 1/2-year prison term and left in place his two years of supervised release. But supervised release -- a form of probation -- is only available to people who have served prison time. Without prison, it's unclear what happens next.
U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton posed the question to Libby's attorneys and to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: Does this mean Libby won't actually be required to serve supervised release? Should he just have to report to probation officials as if he spent time in prison?
The law, Walton said in court documents, ''does not appear to contemplate a situation in which a defendant may be placed under supervised release without first completing a term of incarceration.''
For now, it appears Libby is in legal limbo. Walton gave both sides until Monday to respond."
Well, I dunno, maybe the Dems should just give in and go with the flow, assume we are going to have a reasonably honest Dem president and overwhelming majorities on the Hill.
The Dems should go ahead and say "The president can do anything. Congress doesn't have to pay attention to the Constitution. The DoJ is, you know, run by the party in power." And so on. And, then, when the Dems are in power, go ahead and use that power to knock down Bush's creations, sort out the DoD and the DoJ and the FBI and the CIA and so on. Hilary can freaking bug every talk show host and give Hugo Chavez a bj in the Oval office or whatever. Every single Bush appointee can be fired or impeached and be sent to Gitmo or the Atlanta Federal Pen.
And, then, once that's done, and once all the electronic voting machines are crushed and replaced with pencils and the constitution has been restored and transparency required by law from top to bottom. They can all step down and let the people choose a government.
Well, it is an option. Perhaps not an ideal option but I'd say it has as much chance of a good outcome as impeachment now or a normal new administration.
Digby, you are very smart and wise.
Though I think the POTUS and VP should be impeached, I can't see the Courts being any help at this point, and think it will politically backfire. Which is the more important matter at hand.
My solution? Every time any citizen sees Bush or Cheney in public they scream polite but effective invectives (TM?) at the both of them.
"Worst. President. Evah!" That one for President Cheney.
"Criminal! Bedwetter! Traitor!" Also for President Dick.
"Lifelong loser! Alcholic! Irresponsible! Worst President Ever!" This one can be used for the Puppet in Chief.
And so on.
We are just plain screwed, and HRC, whom I think would make a fine POTUS, is NOT going to help. 4-8 more years of the SOS. The Mighty Wulitzer will crank up and hound her relentlessly about nothing for her entire term.
Personally, I think the country is dead, at least for the rest of my lifetime, and I'm all of 48. I'll hang in there in fight as much as I can, but that's only because I'm a very combative SOB. 
The simple reality is that if the Dems don't seriously move to impeach--and pound the issue--I and many others will perceive them as being part of this criminal cabal and not vote for them.
Impeach immediately, and here's why:
Americans must be made to understand that our country runs on something other than crude oil and raw political power. It runs on morality, like it or not. Right now, as we speak, America does not deserve to survive George Bush. Got that? We don't DESERVE TO SURVIVE. We haven't earned that right by fighting against and defeating the forces of corruption.
Waiting until the 2008 election to deal with Bush and Cheney...well, you don't treat cancer with aspirin after letting it spread for years, do you? Every day, every minute we allow these criminals to continue acting unopposed, they grow stronger, their disease grows more established.
Yes, the Senate would fail to convict George Bush. Yes, BushCo will obstruct and delay as long as they can. But if we're going to lose, I say let's go down swinging, not saying, "Maybe we'll get 'em later." There may not BE a later if we wait any longer. That's how far the Bush cancer has spread into the American system of government.
The solution, not a perfect one but perhaps the only worthy one, is to expose the rigging. Make BushCo show their asses to everybody, how they lie, cheat, obstruct and delay Congress's every subpoena. Raise the level of noise, start typing THESE PEOPLE ARE CRIMINALS in all caps.
The time to smack these motherfuckers down is NOW, not sometime next year. Bush, Cheney and their entire hoard of plunderers belong in prison, while Rupert Murdoch should be deported back to Rooville.
Remember Hamlet? "Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and, by opposing, end them.
We face an existential challenge, right here, right now. America without any sense of true nobility is just a big bully country with an insatiable hunger for other people's stuff.
George Bush is the self-proclaimed champion of "The Have's and Have More's." He represents the "economic royalists" that FDR warned America about almost eighty years ago. These people don't wait for elections to take place, and they gladly rig the election process whenever they can get away with it.
We need to show them that it's not that easy. Maybe that's the best we can do. Okay then, let's do that.
Jimbo,
I'm all with you about "exposing the rigging", but it's not necessary to hold impeachment trials to do so.
If the Dems continue to hold investigations which bring more WH wrongdoing to light, they will benefit, and the Republicans will be seen more and more as covering up. However, once the Dems move to impeach, it turns into a contest of political strength which the Dems will lose, thereby hurting their chances in 2008. It's analogous to filibustering. No party gainst anything by announcing a filibuster and then failing miserably, no matter how right they are.
I agree: Gonzales first. Go for the weakest link. That would paralyze justice and keep them on the defensive.
Rove and Cheney win. The Republicaneocons, aided and abetted by an irretrievably corrupt media establishment, have successfully gamed the system. They circumvented the rules, cheated here, obstructed there, and made a joke out of democracy and law.
I've read a few horror stories in the psych literature about people who get involved with psychopaths ("I woke up one morning and found my house sold and my savings emptied", etc). These 'people' have no conscience and less remorse. I don't think it is actually possible to deal with these people on any level.
Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.
The only solution is to make sure that no Republican ever holds political office again, ever.
The problem with not beginning impeachment proceedings is the message it sends to our citizens--especially young ones. The message is that you can get away with the political equivalent of murder if there aren't enough votes to convict you. By moving forward on impeachment, we would start to take back our ability to tell the truth--and demonstrate that there are consequences if you don't. It would also officially launch the process of taking back our country--something I feel a hell of a lot like doing as we approach our nation's anniversary.
erquirk | 07.03.07 - 5:46 pm
What other options are there? (Besides doing nothing).
If Congress declares the Bush administration in contempt for not complying with subpoenas and goes to the conservative DC Federal Courts to resolve the matter, we will lose that battle. Since it is very likely a judge will rule in their favor. And the consequences of losing would be utterly devastating. I say it would be better not to go that route. Especially since THAT is the direction the Bush administration is trying to push us to. Perhaps we should take that into consideration.
The other route, Impeachment, overrides the executive privilege claims. The Impeachment Committee (House Judiciary) is constitutionally empowered to investigate Presidential wrongdoing so a president has no right to claim executive privilege.
So why take this issue to the courts, where the odds are against us, rather that using the Impeachment Committees' special powers clearly laid out procedurally in the Constitution?
The "conventional wisdom" on this is completely ass-backwards.
Impeachment is essential. There is not in anyone's living memory an administration as corrupt and destructive as the Bush administration. They cannot be left to dissolve into history with any pretense of honor.
They Senate is deadlocked, so why not let them chew on impeachment trials. And funnily enough, Senators are sworn for the trial. Not that it would matter in every case.
One thing that must not happen, no additional Supreme Court appointee of Bush should be confirmed, if such a circumstance should present itself.
I think we are way beyond the realm of political calculation with regard to impeachment. The last 25 years of cult of republicanism has been a giant political calculation of everything culminating in the depravity and Constitution undermining of the bushliar-criminal regime. The majority of Americans long for their government to "do what is right" and doing what is right, indisputably is doing everything within the rule of law to protect the American people from the cult of republicanism criminals that infest the government starting with the criminal-in-chief.
Political calculation be damned; win or lose be damned. Politicians doing what is right for America - doing everything they can to rid us of the rot of bush - is what America needs more than anything.
.
SPYED ON, I can handle that, EMPTY THE TREASURY, It's not all my money so I can handle that, LIES, I've been lied to before, KILLING IRAQIS, well I did join the Army once, WAR FOR PROFIT, way of the world, but OUTING A CIA AGENT IN TIME OF WAR IS TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and TREASON, NOT IM MY COUNTRY, NOT WHILE I'M ALIVE.
CALL NANCY PELOSI@1-202-225-0100 DISCUSS IMPEACHMENT
well i advocated impeachment way above, but that was before i had a burrito and regained my senses. i was starting to high five myself when i read some comments about doing the right thing and disregarding political calculation. i was nodding like a bobblehead doll when i read alex b's post at 4:16 pm above. then the correct course of action came to me like a skyscraper falling into my lap: just go shopping.
the only people talking about impeachment are bathrobe-clad kossaks and that is basically as far as it will ever go. No matter how much you stomp your feet and hold your breath, BUSH. WILL. NOT. BE. IMPEACHED.
...or anything close
Even if we investigate, Bush-Co will lie and deny. If we impeach, Bush-Co will ignore it. Bush will continue to issue signing statements, and pardons, and torture, and destroy habeus corpus, and he will probably invade Iran--even if he has to use nukes to do it.
That doesn't mean we should give up. We must fully investigate and impeach--and I believe turn the whole lot of them over to the Hague for war crimes.
So how do we responsibly and ethically deal with amoral criminals?
For he is not leaving office until his term is up. If then. And I doubt he and his crew will go quietly.
This constitutional crisis is as much about our character, as it is about his.
And it's getting more and more ugly.
i'm sorry, but the pro-impeachment crowd convinces me more and more than they are incredibly naive.
The Clinton impeachment didn't occur in a vacuum. In fact, the groundwork for impeachment was being laid before he was elected, thru the Whitewater articles.
I am fairly sure that Tom Delay declared his intention to impeach Clinton in Jan. 1993. It could have been Armey, but SOMEONE did.
So, the GOP intended to impeach Clinton from the beginning. They wanted to use Whitewater, but when that didn't work, they arranged for an inquiry into his sex life. The Paula Jones suit was part of this operation, of course. Finally, when he lied under oath, as I understand it, the questions that Clinton was asked were very convoluted, and required a lot of parsing to answer. At any rate, he was set up---they were hoping he would say something that could be held against him.
Now all this doesn't even take into account the massaging of the press.
So, you want to impeach now, with no foundation, and no support in congress. Fat chance. Somehow you need to trap the Republicans so they have to join the impeachment process. Remember, Kerry made his famous "for it/agains it" blooper when he was set up too. You need to get Republicans on record one way, and then slam them with facts that force them to impeach.
Its' not going to happen now. There is too little time.
The Dems needed to be laying the groundwork for a possible impeachment back in 2004, at least. They didn't, and now they can't impeach.
hey snaporaz, the bathrobe ref was clever but the all caps really got my attention. i'm thinking really clearly at this moment and i believe that whether or not impeachment is the end result of whatever path is chosen by the majority party in congress, we can all still go shopping.
hey marky, thanks for giving us a statute of limitations for the house to exercise its article 1, sec 2, para 5 impeachment power. now that i am aware of this penumbral metacode of the constitutiion (wow and just in time for the 4th), can you fill me in on whether the malls will be open during martial law?
Look, the answer for Democrats is simple: Win elections. The game is not complicated. The side with the most compelling ideas, conveyed most clearly, wins. Rather than pursuing impeachment -- a non-democratic tactic for undoing a democratic election -- wouldn't it be better to concentrate our energy on making sure we win the next election, and the one after that? Would impeachment whip up our base (and theirs)? Sure. But does it advance the ball? No. It's a turn-off to independents and moderates. It does nothing to give us the majority we need to change the direction of the country. And, as digby rightly notes, it's unlikely to succeed in the timeframe we've got. I say, channel that righteous rage toward 2008.
Notaboomer, Don't blame me for reality.
I would like to see Bush and Cheney impeached. I"d like to see Bush tried for war crimes, along with Rumsfeld, and Cheney convicted of corruption.
Impeachment is a political act that requires political support. The Democrats haven't built up that support (well, they haven't even tried), and now I believe their time is better spent on other matters. If they had started in 2005 or 2006 I think that could have worked.
I would recommend people, which probably includes digby, who read a lot of news sources every day to take a break and contemplate. Take a break for one or two days. It's hard to do, but sometimes you have to.
The reason I say this is because of this thinking: "we should not try - if we try, we might fail, and that would look bad". This, I believe, is mainstream-media popular thinking and it's atrociously bad.
Instead, you should think "We should try - we might succeed. If we don't try, we make sure we don't succeed."
Remember, the non-Iraq issues that devastated the Republicans and depressed their base the most in the last election were the Mark Foley page scandal and the spate of corruption charges against GOP legislators. The key to hurting Republican turnout in 2008 is hammering on Republican corruption: The billions missing in Iraq, corrupt contracts, etc. Congressional investigations will yield far more fruit than impeachment ever could. Expose their hypocrisy in a way that matters to their base (as opposed to ours) and they will fall.
impeachment? nah. how about a hostile takeover of the corporate army.
http://tinyurl.com/2hxy2k
I agree 100% with RAC.
Impeachment is not necessary to expose corruption.
Great post and comments...just before I logged in here I was reading Hendrick Hertzberg's summary of the Post Cheney series in the New Yorker. It reads like an indictment for impeachment to me.
Of course, the first thing I did when I logged on to a computer this morning - was send an e-mail to my representative, John Lewis. Unfortunately I didn't save a copy of my impassioned missive, but it basically said
IMPEACH!!!!
Digby, I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore
Really, I agree with those who say (and I said this to my rep), the time for political calculation is past, we need to act. We need to rise up in outrage and make these bastards fear us. If they don't understand what the Constitution means, we need to make them eat it.
I agree with whoever said we need a "get the F*** out" protest in Washington. It's time to remind those in Washington who is supposed to be in charge here - we the people.
SH
Marky | 07.03.07 - 6:58 pm
It is necessary, if you intend on prosecuting corruption and law breaking of the Executive Branch.
i agree and disagree with marky.
1) yes, it's too late to impeach without clear evidence (videotape) of a crime that the majority of the American people can comprehend. (sorry, the yellowcake / niger "italian letter" /plame outing / scooter perjury never got traction. too complicated.)
2) hammer cheney's health? and then what? have bush (or the supreme court) appoint fred thompson vice-president right before the 2008 election?
no thanks. my hopes are on:
1) a crazed assassin.("won't someome rid me of this meddlesome priest?!")
2) a green zone disaster ala the marine barracks bombing in beirut under reagan. (at least we'd get most of our troops home.)
There's a perfectly wonderful alternative.
Have the Democrats win every available election in 2008. And then have the entire GOP up on charges of racketeering. Hit em with the RICO act.
R.A.C. is a very sophisticated concern troll. You should not listen to him.
I agree with everything said in this post, in regards to impeachment. It's to late now. Should have been done in 2004.
I still don't know how he got elected. That was unbelievable to me. I couldn't fathom it. The latino vote helped him. I guess they thoght he was going to legalize all illegals.
no impeachment is not the way. the only thing we can do is watch the candidates. Make sure the same people don't get in again. i know what your saying. The gop has no chanc ein the next election. That's true, unless thye cheat of course, which they will.
Watch hillary. Her husband was touring the world with bush 41. Hillary is going to have a fundraiser by RUPERT MURDOCK. Yes that rupert murdock. On fox they are constantly attacking her, try to galvanize anti-fox types for hillary. It's not working espiecailly with the revelation that NEWS CORP IS PAYING HER.
As long as hildog doesn't get the nom. the dems are fine. If she does the repubs are going up against themselves. That's a win-win for them. Truth be told.
Is it possible to issue blanket pardons - or pardon it forward (I forgive you for all the crimes you might ever have done in my service sort of thing)? I'm hoping not.
YES. (1) The very earliest pardons members of rebellions in general. (2) Ford's pardon of Nixon was completely prospective -- it relieved him of past crimes and immunized him from future prosecutions.
Look, what you people don't seem to realize is that this is not a wingbat issue -- this is political life and death. By playing the pardon card so casually, Bush has crossed a very serious line. The legal precedents support NO LIMITATION WHATSOEVER on the President's pardon power -- not Congressional investigation, not specificity, not past/present/future, not commutation, nothing -- EXCEPT IN CASES OF IMPEACHMENT. If Bush isn't placed under impeachment, he literally has complete and utter impunity to pardon every single member of his administration, retroactively and perpetually, at one stroke of the pen.
Furthermore, the SC has held that he doesn't need to consult anyone to do this. He can act completely of his own accord, absorb all the responsibility, and go out of office calling himself a "uniter, not a divider" by defusing every single possible criminal prosecution on the horizon.
This isn't a matter of "make an example!" or "impeach teh war criminal rethuglicans!" Kossack bullshit -- this simply a straightforward legal matter; we are at risk of losing the ability to hold anyone in the administration accountable if we don't act first. Even if the impeachment is ultimately unsuccessful, every moment during which Bush is not under impeachment, he is free to absolve anyone he likes, and given how low he just set the bar with Scooter, that is a VERY, VERY frightening prospect.
IMPEACH! I think the public will be in favor of it. Maybe there won't be a conviction in the senate but let's get an up or down vote and let the senators voting "no" that are running for re-election in '08 face the voters on the issue.
Impeachment is not necessary to expose corruption.
Hit em with the RICO act.
Why is it so hard to understand that investigations, prosecutions, and even convictions have no effect if the President is free to pardon or commute every sentence, unless he's under impeachment?
Frankly, I don't even care if we win the impeachment, or about the political strategery -- if the impeachment isn't in place, there's no consequences to anything we might achieve.
Like Harry Reid said Monday, the Libby conviction was the one glimmer of accountability we've seen over the last 7 years, and even that took essentially a perfect storm to come together -- and now, even that's been casually nullified on Bush's whim.
What else to you need before you understand that we're not winning anything here? The *only* GOP hitmen who've seen any hard consequences are Abramoff, Cunningham, and Ney -- not Foley, not Libby, not Rumsfeld, no one. Gonzales is still sitting pretty and we've got less leverage against him than we did months ago just because the USAtty story's languished. The crimes haven't become less significant since then, but the chance of accountability has. All our tricky maneuvering isn't getting us a lot so far, all.
Here is a scenario that could happen:
Imagine that there are several small terrorist bombs going off in several American cities a few days before the election. Imagine that President Bush says: "We will delay the election; we must spend our time fighting and investigating the terrorism."
How many people would protest? And how would they protest?
A coup doesn't have to be anything dramatic with tanks on the streets of Washington DC or anything like it. It can be done bureaucratically.
The scary thing is that bin Laden might do such a thing. Saudi Arabia is already a dictatorship (with American help). It would be a win for him to have dictatorship in America as well; it would be both a revenge on the American people and a way to illustrate to Americans how it is to live in dictatorship.
It is therefore an absolute must that the election goes forward in any place where it physically can do so, even if there are terrorist attacks.
Investigations with the repeated implication that the evidence gathered will be forwarded to a grand jury after the Bush administration expires, and that any attempt at obstructing justice by pardoning any of the perpetrators will result in harsher treatment of the remaining defendants (Bush).
why is lying to Congress and the world about Iraq having WMD not an Impeachable reason? here's one of the many smoking guns...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2...in1527749.shtml
Bush and Cheney cannot lie blaming faulty inteligance after this report.
Bush and Cheney don't respond to anything but force, or the equivalent of it. Impeach.
No Dice is right when they said this, "I don't want my generation to go down like the "good Germans" did back in WWII. I want us to stand up for what is right, despite all the uphill battles we face. If I know we went down fighting an honest fight and stood up to the abuses of the Bush Adminsitration, I'll feel better that we all made a conscious and meaningful effort to defend our democracy from a true and utter despotic adminstration." My friends have asked me, "Why do you go to protests, it won't make one bit of difference?" My response is because at least I can sleep at night knowing that I did what I could, call, write, protest, support worthy causes, etc. so that hopefully I can look my children and grandchildren in the eye and sincerely tell them that I did the best I could. It doesn't matter if impeachment fails as we know it will. It has to be done to get on the record where these idiots in congress stand once and for all. We'll deal with 2008 in 2008 thank you very much. The time is now.
It would be a bad idea to impeach Bush. An investigation after he is out of office will be much more effective. By January Bush will be the lamest of ducks and will exert no influence over the nation whatsoever.
I agree with the person above who said, "ball punching. a lot of ball punching."
Just keep on hammering away at the stuff we have now and on hand and forget the impeachment talk. Democrats are poised to gain power in both houses and the White House and I don't want the nation being given a convenient reason for sticking with the GOP.
A modified 2006-type plan will do Democrats just fine.
With all due respect, I still say ( http://www.dailykos.com/storyonl...7/3/182452/
6070 ) impeachment is a critical step in the recovery of the ailing Republic - even if it "fails"
Impeachment will not play well in "American Idol America" unless it involves sex, drugs and/or rock 'n roll.
I wish I knew the answer. I know the politics and logistics of it likely just won't work. Still, it disturbs me greatly to let such impunity and corruption be established as a precedent. Now the next criminal gang(and there will be another one someday, there's always another one) that tries to take over our government will know going in that if they just have enough chutzpah, they can get away with almost anything, at least as long as they remain in office. Part of me really wants an impeachment, futile or no, just as a clear rejection of what has gone on, and a message that it won't be allowed unchecked in the future. I think the failure of that message to be clearly and vehemently sent after Watergate is a lot of what got us to where we are right now. I'm not sure how we send it in the absence of the impeachment option. I had hope for the subpoena power of the House, and for investigations and oversight after the '06 midterms, but it's been mostly a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, and of necessity will be as long as the Executive is willing to act like a tyrant and his partisans are willing to enable him. The only real remedy for that is impeachment, so we're kind of stuck. Convenient for them, huh?
"The job of the congress, in both cases, was pretty much just seeing if impeachment applied to acts that had already been revealed."
We have that. Legally, we're already there. For but one example, Bush openly bragged that he violated FISA and the 4th Amendment, repeatedly.
Just that Bush/Cheney have stated that they do not have to follow the law and have acted upon that claim, in numerous circumstances -- that is impeachable.
Politically, the danger to the Democrats is if they don't impeach. They will reinforce the two greatest political attacks against us -- we believe in nothing, and we have no spine -- by not impeaching.
Sure, there is risk to impeaching. But have you considered the risk of not impeaching?
It's like the NYT editors who held the warrantless spying story until after the 2004 elections. They were trying to not influence the election, only to realize after the fact that's exactly what they did.
If we risk nothing in defense of the rule of law and of our freedom, then we risk it all.
There is so much conventional dem insider washington wisdom on the don't impeach side its sick. They are the same ones who said dont talk about Iraq durring the 2006 elections. Their candidates lost. Time and time again this convential wasdom is proven wrong. Sems who voted against the Patriot Act and the War are Re-elected. Supprise! Yet here it is again, dems wringing their collective hands. THIS hand wringing is what really pisses of thoes voters. It is f**king pathetic! Don't do this or you'll piss off these people. Where is the proof that impeachment would turn off the moderates and independents? There is none. This is cowardly political calculation. It is WAY past time to STFU and DO SOMETHING! The constitution demands it. The constitution is the only thing that matters. Everything else is moot!
If Bush isn't placed under impeachment, he literally has complete and utter impunity to pardon every single member of his administration, retroactively and perpetually, at one stroke of the pen.
Heck, Bush has the ability to murder an incoming Democratic president and veep, the speaker of the House and the president pro tem of the Senate on January 19th 2009, then resign, have Cheney pardon him and resign, and then it's President Condi.
But, outside the realm of hypotheticals:
"If Not Now, Then When?"
Not impeaching Bush means you might as well cut the impeachment clause out of the constitution, because it's devolved to the point of being used for blowjobs, not high crimes.
Some of the people arguing against impeachment here are concern trolls. Not all of them, certainly, but some.
I believe that you vote for impeachment when you believe it is warranted. Period.
You think it is bad politics? Personally, I don't think it would be bad politics. I think the Democrats would finally -- finally! -- be viewed in a positive light, rather than as the default alternative to a bunch of crooks. I would believe that even if they couldn't get it through the Senate.
But I actually don't care if it is bad politics. Despite the lousy ratings of Bush and Cheney, we can all agree that much of their wrongdoing was motivated by a desire for narrow political gain. I fail to see how engaging in wrongdoing for political gain is worse than refusing to punish wrongdoing for political gain.
A. "R.A.C. is a very sophisticated concern troll. You should not listen to him. -- Bengt Larsson"
B. "Here is a scenario that could happen: Imagine that there are several small terrorist bombs going off in several American cities a few days before the election. Imagine that President Bush says: "We will delay the election; we must spend our time fighting and investigating the terrorism." -- Bengt Larsson.
Bengt, with regards to A: Bite me. I'm making a good faith argument. It's telling that you have to attempt to discredit me because you can't counter my arguments. That, attack over substance, is pure GOP. Who is the troll?
B: Classic fear-mongering. Another cheap rhetorical tactic favored by authoritarians everywhere. Do you really think the GOP would let this clown keep power a second longer than necessary? The right can't wait to be rid of Bush. He took them from majority to minority and threatens the job security of every Repub. incumbent. Get a grip. We don't need this bullshit. The facts about this administration are plenty to bring it down.
Do you seriously think that if the criminality is exposed, that demands similar to those that compelled those "12" to take the walk to see Nixon wouldn't be repeated?
I think you and far too many have been entirely too short-sighted on this whole issue.
As for the alternatives to impeachment, we have seen how inneffectual they are. Look at Rahm Emanuel, offering an amendment that would attempt to make into law Cheney/Addington's unconstitutional assertion that they aren't part of the executive. Very cute, Rahm! Or look at the Gonzales "no confidence vote."
In both cases, the real, consequential vote is called "impeachment." These measures failed because they were patently political stunts, inconsequential and unserious. Put real consequences on the table, and it won't be so funny anymore.
I'm convinced that it is all downhill to a successful impeachment from the day we open a hearing in the House with impeachment expressly "on the table." Ditch the fear, Democrats. In the words of Tip O'Neill, "The main thing is getting the show on the road."
Bill Kristol thinks we're being ridiculous.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07...libby/
#comments
I say ram a fucking impeachment up his goddamn ass!
Those with power fear the loss of power.
Impeaching this administration may put progressive policical gains in the future at risk. However, it remains that Impeaching this administration is a Democratic Imperative.
Or we could just go with the Mean Girls approach:
Ruin his Hot Body
and sow discord amongst his
Army of Skanks
Bengt, with regards to A: Bite me. I'm making a good faith argument. It's telling that you have to attempt to discredit me because you can't counter my arguments. That, attack over substance, is pure GOP. Who is the troll?
R.A.C., you are a liar. I've asked you a similar thing before: do you want Democrats to win in 2008?
What does the democrats have to lose? I think the majority of people in the US are ready to impeach Bush. He and Cheney believe that they are above the law. They both need to be brought down to earth or to justice.
Wow...a mile-long comment thread...had to skim.
I don't believe the impeachment would be successful right now. But Dems ought to be saying that they're thinking about it long and hard. They need to get the idea "out there" even if they don't want to follow through at the moment. Let Bush know he's skating on thin ice and needs to mend his ways. Every time Bush breaks the law, obstructs justice, lies, etc., and nothing happens, he is emboldened to do it again. Dems in Congress sit by and do nothing and look powerless. Something must be done! And if it's only talk of impeachment, rather than impeachment itself, it's a start.
Also, if you get a consensus out there that maybe Bush ought be impeached, then it's easier to get done next time. Building public sentiment for something like that takes time. Now's the time for Pelosi, Reid, and the Dems to say Bush is on notice, better watch his step.
The possibility of great rewards demands great risks. Impeachment of a sitting president has never been confirmed in this country, but then there has never been a case a strong as that which could be produced against Bush. You are correct, Digby and the rest of you, that the Democratic leadership of the House and Senate risk damaging what now seems to be a cinch on the Presidency in 2008, but at what further cost? Failure of the Democrats to impeach the President, even if they never initiate proceedings, is a tacit approval of his wanton lawlessness and the more dangerous idea that the executive branch is somehow above the law.
It is analogous to a police officer watching as a burglar breaks a home, murders its occupants, and then carts off anything worth selling in a rented U-Haul. It may have been dangerous to interrupt such a fiend in his grisly work, but it is the job of the police to do so, and it is to the betterment of the community and the victims of such a crime that it is done. And how much more will the next criminal do after witnessing such a police force?
If the House, under Democratic leadership, fails to impeach Bush they are committing the same crime of negligence. Not only will they, and rightfully so, be thought of as cowards for failing to act against blatant and repeated crimes against the most deeply held and important virtues of this country, but they will open the door for future presidents to do even worse than Bush has done.
It is dangerous, but it is a battle that I believe is necessary and worth fighting. In 1775 the militias of Concord and Lexington did not know they were starting a long drawn out war with Britain, but they did know that they were fighting against troops of the largest, strongest military of their time. It would have been easier to surrender or fade away, to give up their arms, to wait for a better time than dead of a cold New England Spring night, but still they fought. In 1776 when the Founding Fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred Honor to the Declaration Independence they still had only a ghost of a chance to actually win the war that would make the Declaration anything more than a treasonous piece of paper. Our grandfathers or great grandfathers had no guarantee that they would win when they stormed across a blood soaked beach in Normandy.
In politics, as in life, there are times when doing the right thing, even though it is risky, is worth it. Impeaching the president is unquestionably morally justified and necessary. That is what matters, and that is why impeachment should be attempted. If the Democrats win, the country is better for it. If they lose then they can at least hold their heads high and say they did what was right, and point decisively to those who helped drive Bush's get-away car.
Stage an Impeachment March On Washington: Nothing galvanizes Americans like indignant schoolmarms blocking the streets.
Impeachment should be pursued on the basis it is a key element of the legislature's job description. When the garbage piles up, and really begins to stink.... it is their job to take it OUT...that is why they are sometimes referred to as "public servants". To do absolutely nothing because perceived time constraints mentioned above state that on some pretense it is a politically risky maneuver, is in a sense behaving similar as the accused on some level.
An Impeachment March would indeed be a very silly idea. Bush can ignore marchers. He certainly did in the runup to the Iraq war.
If we survive into a next Administration, Bush can be arrested and tried.
Even if he's pre-emptively pardoned every OTHER member of his cesspit crew.
How can the trolls see to type with their lips firmly planted on the arses of Emperor Twinklenuts and Darth Cheney?
Bengt,
Among other things, you're wasting time on a real troll. I woke up this morning thinking impeachment (and called my US Rep with that message), but if this is the best you've got ...
.
I believe in taking it one step at a time. Since the ultimate judge of a strategy is events, and we don't know the future, we can't at any stage say for sure what will work and what will not. Start with the investigations, next the subpoenas, etc. If one step works, go on to the next step. It's a long (long long) shot, but if events fall our way, the thing might take off, and we might ride it all the way to removal from office. The only sure thing is that nothing will happen if we do nothing.
MikeB, I'm not arguing with the troll, I'm arguing for others.
I don't know you, but if you are sincere, you can evaluate arguments written by others, even if I'm not writing them.
Is impeachment the right thing even if a failed impeachment attempt leads to a GOP win in 2008? Are you guys out of your minds? I'm all for being courageous, but what I see among most of the impeachment crowd is stupidity---let's do it, and who cares what happens!
Way to win power back from the GOP.
I'm not interested in political martyrdom, thank you.
I agree with the other people who support impeachment. It is about what
constitutional self-governance requires of us, and requires in order to remain in existence. The politics of it are quite beside the point.
It is especially not a moral option
for the Congress to pursue or not pursue on the politics of it. Granted
the Republicans have no honor. If the
Democrats have honor, they will impeach. If they decide not to at least set hearings into motion, they reveal themselves as equally without honor, and equally unworthy of servving in elective office.
I am so tired of these stupid "political" considerations! Why has the moral of the question been delegated second seat?!
Of course there should be impeachment, because it is the right thing to do, these guys are crooks.
Nobody can predict the future, or know how everyone else will react, but if the dems were to suddenly grow a backbone and procede with impeachment, i for one will say, "finally!"
Digby, I understand all your arguments, but at least the effort of impeachment should be made. Otherwise down the line we will not be able to say we attempted to impeach the most lawless, out-of-control administration. I don't care whether we fail, but to sit and take it, well, that just makes us accomplices to the crime, in my opinion.
Impeachment is out for reasons you raise.... mostly because of the long-standing cowardice and complicity of the Democrats in Congress. So there is no getting rid of Bush and his crowd until the next elections, if then. I am going to fly the flag at half-staff starting tomorrow and every day until constitutional government is restored in this country; it's only a symbolic gesture, but it would be nice to see flags everywhere at half-staff every day. More constructively, there needs to be a third party movement made up of ordinary people who are committed to restoring constitutional government and the rule of law, and breaking up the concentrations of wealth that control the media and the whole society and that feed themselves through that control. The idea that most Congressional Democrats are much better than the Rethugs is an illusion pure and simple. Divisive "issues" of the moment (abortion, etc) need to take a back-seat to the basic tasks of restoring accountable and honest government.
John Conyers has this exactly right. Bush announced his Libby commutation in the middle of the July 4 holiday because he wants this story to go away fast. It's a loser of an issue for him. As long as the Libby scandal lingers, so do stories about Bush's dishonest rush to war. Conyers' Judiciary Committee is going to make sure this stays in the papers. That's precisely the right tack. It's unlikely to lead to impeachment, but it helps the cause.
Subject change: I hear lots of impassioned talk in this thread about having the courage to impeach no matter what the consequences -- and God bless you for your passion --but not one person has told me what the charge is? What is the legal charge that is going to stick? If you can't answer this question, you've got nothing. You've got to show criminality, not incompetence, not disagreement with policies, not some vague notion of abuse of power.
P.S. Bengt. You called me a liar so you must be in the know. You must have facts to back up your contention. Or could you just be talking out of your ass? And if you're claiming to know facts about me that prove to be bullshit, then maybe all your assertions are similarly suspect, no? If your contentions are not grounded in fact, they must be based in what, faith? Faith-based arguments? Strike three, Bengt. So far, in this one thread, you've employed ad hominem attacks, fear-mongering and fact-free faith-based arguments. You are either a GOP troll or an idiot. (I know, slightly redundant). Which is it, Bengt? Want me to post my campaign contributions? Or would my voter registration do? Just goes to show that ignorance and irrationality are not the sole province of the right. I'll make you a deal. I'll get you proof of my democratic party registration if you promise to never post a comment here, or on any other liberal blog, again. Digby can referee. Of course, if you don't take me up on this deal, then you acknowledge to all here that you are full of shit when you label me a troll. Deal?
There is no alternative. This is beyond electoral politics. This really is about the future of our country and whether we are going to be a nation of laws that adheres to some sort of constitutional framework or whether we are going to declare ourselves a plutocracy and be done with all illusions of democracy.
I personally don't give a fuck what happens to either party as a result of this. This really is about trying to save our country.
Damn the torpedoes, let it rip. Expose this cesspool and let the bodies fall where they may. We owe this to future generations.
Short-term, mid-term and long-term strategies have to be logically developed and implemented.
Build the narrative of BushCheney and their Republican cronies as both political and criminal obstructionists. Every day. Remind the people (and maybe the press will listen too) of all the hanky-panky.
Hardnosed Congressional investigations -- led by competent investigators -- wherever they lead. Subpoenas, contempt citations, no foolish compromises. Impeachment may not be desired, but is on the table if investigations show cause. Simply, this is accountability for all the disastrous undertakings of the last 6+ years. Republicans are obstructionists if they excuse criminal behavior.
Make it clear that this will continue after 1-20-2009 as necessary, not only in Congress, but with a refreshed DOJ and 93 U.S. Attorneys who believe in the rule of law, The U.S. Constitution and accountability to the people.
"It's unlikely to lead to impeachment, but it helps the cause."
If Conyers subpoenas Scooter to invoke his 5th Amendment Rights again and again, it could easily lead to impeachment of Cheney and Bush for an IIPA violation.
I agree that impeachment can't presently win in the Senate. But it won't immediately go to the Senate. I believe the hearings would begin in the House Judiciary Committee, right?
I also respectfully disagree that impeachment should be for a simple charge. Yesterday's obstruction of justice count should be able to stand alone, but it has been disputed, spun, and argued to the point that many will accept it.
A long laundry list of charges would take longer to prove, but would be far more powerful taken in its entirety. High crimes can't just be allowed to go unanswered, whether we know if impeachment will succeed or not. Additional charges can also be added, based on the crimes-of-the-day, as hearings proceed. Stonewalling of impeachment hearings will ultimately not be a successful tactic, while it has so far worked spectacularly well with oversight hearings. Impeachment hearings will be televised for all to watch on C-Span, and harder to spin by the MSM. By the time an "omnibus" impeachment resolution is voted out of the House and goes to the Senate for more hearings, W's approval rating will likely be down to single digits. 11/08 will also be much closer.
Many Repugs who had steadfastly supported Nixon eventually saw fit to vote for impeachment. Sure, the party is different now, more infested with delusional radical extremists and corruption, but after the hearings, the stench of the Bush-Cheney regime will be so great that many Repugs will vote to impeach merely to further their own reelection efforts.
Our nation, our democracy, maybe even civilization are in serious trouble right now, on many fronts, and there is nothing much that can be done about anything with this administration still in place. Impeachment-in-progress won't move us forward, but it might put the brakes on further destructive actions by the administration.
So what better agenda does Congress have for the next 18 months other than impeachment?
I'm sorry, but this impeachment talk is just stupid. Does anyone really think 2/3 of the Senate would really convict Bush? I mean, after all, there are an awful lot of Republican Senators who have gone out of their way to protect the guy on any number of issues, including the Plame affair. Moreover, it would be a massive distraction from what the public really wants--an end to the war in Iraq. This whole Libby case only enshrines the sense of entitlement that Bush, Cheney, and the rest of their idiot brigade has, and most Americans see that and resent it. This can only be a plus for progressives and Democrats in the long run.
Last, for better or worse, Bush has the power to pardon and commute, it's in the Constitution. We may not like what he does with it, but I'm willing to bet that the public will like a long drawn out impeachment process that ends with Bush still in office even less. It will only enhance the sense of entitlement and victimhood so prevelant on the right. Moreover, it will probably enhance Bush's power, rather than weaken it.
I used to live in a neighborhood with a problem. Some people owned a couple dogs that wouldn't behave. Jumping fences, barking, biting kids, tearing up and strewing trash across various lawns. One day a particularly savage attack nearly killed a small boy. No one waited on the authorities, the collective anger was so high. A couple rounds and down the dogs went, never to terrorize the neighborhood again. Sometimes desperate circumstances provoke desperate actions.........
If we survive into a next Administration, Bush can be arrested and tried.
Even if he's pre-emptively pardoned every OTHER member of his cesspit crew.
No; he can pardon himself so long as he hasn't been impeached. It's really amazing how broadly the courts have defined the pardon power. When they call it 'plenary,' they ain't kiddin'.
The simple crime reequired to pursue impeachment is pretty damned obvious: this administration lied us into this war. We should only commit our forces to war as a last resort and for defensive measures, and once war starts we must try to end it as soon as we can. What could be simpler at this point to understand? Iraq had no god damn WMD's. There were no ties to 9/11 or Al Qaeda. Iraq was no threat to us. Add all that to the fact that that they have the second greatest amount of oil in the world and pretty much anyone can understand that.
Sure it's a risk to impeach. But it's a lot greater risk not to impeach. The message has to be sent out to Repugs and Dems alike. You can't go to war over lies. You can't commit our soldiers to the hell of war for political gain or the economic benefits of your cronies. If we don't stand up as a nation and demand this crew be removed from office for what they've done, these bastards of whatever party will do the same thing again. If anything it will be worse, if that can even be imagained.
We're not politicians so let's not think like them - we're citizens and this is our country. If we don't fight back and use the tools given to us in the Constitution to protect the Constitution, then we don't deserve the liberty we're supposedly trying so hard to export to Iraq.
Screw this bullshit and impeach Cheney first. Talk to your friends, your family, your neighbors and call your reps every day and demand they support H. Res. 333. Call the House Judiciary Committee and tell Conyers to read his own damn book. Let's get this done.
http://www.danablankenhorn.com/2...ng-away-
wi.html
(excerpt)Popular attitudes are hardening, not just against Bush and Cheney specifically but against Republicans generally. Richard Nixon went down, and Republicans went down hard in 1974 and 1976. But their philosophy was not discredited. Their ideas came back.
That's not true today. Democrats will be able to dine-out on the Bush-Cheney legacy for even longer than Republicans dined-out on Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. We're talking Hooverville here, folks -- and that's assuming the economy stays upright another year-and-a-half.
Impeachment is out for reasons you raise.... mostly because of the long-standing cowardice and complicity of the Democrats in Congress. So there is no getting rid of Bush and his crowd until the next elections, if then. I am going to fly the flag at half-staff starting tomorrow and every day until constitutional government is restored in this country; it's only a symbolic gesture, but it would be nice to see flags everywhere at half-staff every day. More constructively, there needs to be a third party movement made up of ordinary people who are committed to restoring constitutional government and the rule of law, and breaking up the concentrations of wealth that control the media and the whole society and that feed themselves through that control. The idea that most Congressional Democrats are much better than the Rethugs is an illusion pure and simple. Divisive "issues" of the moment (abortion, etc) need to take a back-seat to the basic tasks of restoring accountable and honest government.
I'm not too impressed with the idea of a third party. Every congressional Democrat was chosen in a Democratic primary. A number of them have safe seats. And who do (ordinary) Democrats choose for office? Quite timid people.
Since there is internal party democracy along with the main democracy, you can get better representatives, if grassroots Democrats choose wisely. If they do not, a third party does not help that.
I'll say it again, real simple:
A: The pardon power lets Bush absolve anyone of any crime, retroactively, preemptively, generally, or specifically. It nullifies the results of investigations and prosecution.
B: Bush just demonstrated that he has no compunction whatsoever about abusing his pardon power.
C: The only legal, historical, or Constitutional limitation on the pardon power is impeachment.
"Success" of impeachment is immaterial in the wake of the Libby pardon -- impeachment proceedings are a precondition to everything else -- without those proceedings, in order for the results of any investigation or prosecution to stick, we have to depend on Bush agreeing with the conclusions. It's that simple.
This has been a very interesting thread. I've especially enjoyed reading about how I'm a spineless establishment insider for even raising the question.
However, let me just point something out. I never raised the loss of the 2008 election as a factor. My question was whether a failed impeachment would actually end up exonerating Bush rather than holding him accountable. I'm not all that concerned about 08 in this, although public opinion is kind of important and we have to be concerned about it. I'm interested in what will stop this cycle of illegality.
I raise the question because there is no chance in hell that this 50/50 Senate will convict. None. You all may believe that there are a bunch of wonderful earnest GOP Senators just waiting to be convinced by our extremely persuasive arguments that Bush violated the constitution but you'll have to forgive me if I'm not quite as sanguine about their good intentions and devotion to the Republic. After all, they did back him every step of the way.
Perhaps an acquittal doesn't actually matter. I said it was a tough call. But I don't think it makes me a GOP appeaser to simply ask the question.
R.A.C. wrote:
I'll make you a deal. I'll get you proof of my democratic party registration if you promise to never post a comment here, or on any other liberal blog, again. Digby can referee. Of course, if you don't take me up on this deal, then you acknowledge to all here that you are full of shit when you label me a troll. Deal? (bold in the original)
R.A.C., don't be silly. I asked you whether you want Democrats to win in 2008, and you start ranting about party registration. As far as I'm aware, you can change party registration, and change back. You can be registered as anything if you don't bother with the primary. Or you may not bother voting at all, if your district is a safe seat.
Of course I don't make a deal with you, "on any other liberal blog". Don't be silly.
I personally find many of the armchair quarterback Hamlets here to be the naive ones. Too many of you seem convinced that once the Democrats take over all will be well and good in this country.
You are naive and misguided because you actually think that your discussions of strategy even matter. You are seriously deluded if you think that anyone in the Dem leadership gives a fuck about what you have to say about strategies you propose.
Though I do think Meteor Blades has a good idea that could work.
This issue is binary. Like so much in American politics you have only two options: impeach or don't impeach. If you say don't impeach you get nothing. No action at all. No hearings or investigations just gutless Democrats waiting out the clock and doing nothing to right the dangerous wrongs of this adminstration until '08 comes along and manna falls from the sky in the form of a Democratic victory. Yee fucking ha!
Suggestions about what to hit them with and how to paint the GOP are nice and good but they are ultimately masturbatory fantasies. The Democratic party has been spineless and ineffectual since Bush took office. Where have they shown political skill and backbone?
America, wake the fuck up and demand that something be done. This is not about parties this is about the American citizenry voicing its opposition to this government and making a stand for the sake of democracy. It is really that simple.
As many of pointed out we could be at war with Iran before we know it. We need to do what we can to take Bush out NOW. We don't have time to waste on stupid political calculations. Impeach and bring it all down, NOW!
winning in sports has nothing to do with beating the other guy (team); it has EVERYTHING to do with NOT BEATING YOURSELF.
If democrats do NOT impeach the bushliar-criminal they are not only NOT doing their job to protect the people against criminals in the government, they are doing the republicans work of preventing impeachment. In other words, by not impeaching, democrats are beating themselves and us.
.
No. A failed impeachment will not hold these people accountable. I think it's worthwhile to have this discussion in the Congress, and certainly the crimes of this administration need to be well documented. But the process of impeachment has been trivialized thanks to Ken Starr, Henry Hyde and company. A failed impeachment would be no worse than what happened to Clinton, who did nothing but get a blow job. Bush and Cheney both need to be subjected to criminal prosecutions. This is arguably the most criminal administration in our country's history. They have gone to extraordinary lengths to defy the law and desecrate every principle this country was founded on. It will take extraordinary measures to deter future administrations from doing the same. That means jail time. I am willing to forgo the formality of impeachment to see these people brought before a criminal court. (Preferably at the Hague). I may be dreaming, but I don't see any other way save our country's future. If Bush and Cheney do jail time while Scooter does none, that's poetic justice.
digby,
thanks.
you argument is just common sense, in my view.
but,
in the face of great anger and frustration on the part of folks you (and I) sympathize with
it is also a column of courage.
impeachment is all consuming process in terms of congressional staff, national emotions/media reporting, and political will.
right now, there is just too much other work for the congress to do, including discovering more about the innumerable bush illegalities.
if impeachment were to be considered by the house,
it should NEVER begin at the top with bush, but at the bottom with gonzales, or some lesser figure first,
and then move to cheney (most likely for impeachment but not conviction).
at that point it won't be necessary to impeach bush - he will have been impeached de facto.
however, from the perspective of the democratic party, having gonzales and cheney and bush in office over the next 18 months is a godsend.
they have proven so boneheaded in their polticial maneuvering that one can only expect they will continue to produce outrages, viz,
the continuing (if you can believe it) efforts to restrict voting of minorities
and to punishing political opponents thru doj prosecutions , e.g., gov seilegman.
in point of fact,
the people who should be 100% for impeachment are congressional, state, and local republicans who face a devastating, and undiscriminating, sunami of popular disgust at the republican party in 2008.
for my part, a small but persistent punishment for bush would be the denial of support for a presidential library anywhere in the united states.
it's only symbolic, of course,
but there is no reason why this country should celebrate it's most authoritarian, theocratic, dishonest, and incompetent, president with a library (or any other public memorial).
and, i would add to this, public pillorying of bush, in the form of boos and jeers in his public appearances, should be de rigeur for american citizens with a historical memory for several decades hence.
Find someone to blow Bush in the Oval Office. That'll start the ball rolling.
Good luck, Digby. Impeachment has become a religious issue now, and the pro-impeachment forces are its Inquisition.
Idealogically, I think impeachment proceedings should begin immediately.
Political/pragmatically speaking, I dunno. Buscheney certainly won't be impeached, but I don't think congress should pretend that impeachment as a tool doesn't exist; indeed, they should step up and either support or refute the arguments for impeachment.
Congress obviously enjoys putting non-binding resolutions to a vote. Why not vote on the matter, a la 'if impeachment was even a remote possibility, here's how it would go down.'
If those who pretend (even nominally) to represent the 70% of Americans who think Bush & Cheney suck shit can't work up the impetus to declare that Bush & Cheney suck shit FOR THE RECORD, then what's the point of even imagining the US is a representative democracy?
July Fucking Fourth.
I agree that a failed impeachment wouldn't hold these people accountable. I agree that impeachment would not work to remove these slimefuckers from office. I have no delusions about that.
I also don't have any delusions that as a lowly taxpayer I can really do all that much to influence the way corporate Democrats vote on issues.
But I think we AS CITIZENS need to do all that we can to stop these motherfuckers from bombing Iran and I think we AS CITIZENS need to do all that we can to shine a light on the unlawfulness of this adminstration.
AS CITIZENS we don't get to set Democratic strategy. We can't send nuanced messages to our congresspeople that "hey, you guys should try to hit them with this" or "you should ballpunch them this way"
You do get to say: IMPEACH THE MOTHERFUCKER(S)
They understand that.
many unknowns can happen on the road to bush and cheney being held accountable for their malfeasance. But if democrats don't even try to use the tools at their disposal they are accessory to the criminality.
.
To further clarify my earlier comments, I know we would have to wait til they're out of office to bring criminal charges. In the meantime, Congress should do whatever it needs to to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage.
Here's my idea: make the Republicans vote on the propriety of Dubya's clemency for Scooter. One way to do that is to bring the following to the nation's attention: Article II, Section 2 gives the President (not just Dubya, but "the President") power to reprieve or pardon ANYBODY. That means he has the Constitutional power to pardon HIMSELF. You can bet that the legal geniuses who suddenly discovered that the Vice President is not part of the Executive have already noticed this loophole.
So, let's get Reid and Pelosi to hold votes on a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT, modifying Article II, Section 2, to limit the President's pardon power to persons who are NOT the President. (For sincere adherents of the "unitary executive" theory, that would mean no pardons for ANY officer in the administration.) Naturally, the amendment would not apply to the current President -- we don't want ex post facto laws, after all.
But Republicans would be forced to vote on this question: should "the President" have the power to pardon his (or HER!) own self? It might be an entertaining vote, if nothing else
-- TP
In the meantime, Congress should do whatever it needs to to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage.
I couldn't agree more with this sentiment and I agree with a lot of points you have made here, G'kar.
I don't mean to single you out but this is exactly what I'm talking about. Also I will be the first to admit that I say and think EXACTLY the same thing all the time. But let me ask you:
WHAT should they do to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage?
What ARE they doing to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage?
What have they EVER done to prevent Bush and Cheney from further damage?
You can write your congressperson a letter and say, "please do whatever you can to prevent Bush and Cheney from further damage" and that will be nice. But it isn't exactly actionable, is it? It's a bit vague, right?
You can at least give your congressperson some direction and say, "IMPEACH! NOW!"
At least that will get the ball rolling, no?
oops meant, prevent B and C from DOING further damage
Man, is the only tool at the Dems disposal impeachment? I believe a contempt of Congress vote could be held soon regarding the administration's attempt to thwart Congressional subpoenas. Better progressives support that, than pursue something doomed to failure.
I understand the desire to impeach Bush totally, but I don't understand the desire for self destruction. Let the public be angry about the President's sense of entitlement, Bush's behavior is only going to create more resentment. This is exactly what needs to happen in order for people to care about the Bush's dangerous expansion of executive power. And, it may be the only way for the Congress to really get to the heart of far more consequential matters (the firing of prosecutors, voting disenfranchisement, pre-war intelligence, and warrantless wire tapping) than the Libby trial.
I think the argument for impeachment could be succinct and easily communicated (not that the Democrats could pull it off).
James Madison and George Mason, at the constitutional convention no less, said that a President can be impeached if he used the power of the pardon to cover up his own crimes http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?
bid=1&pid=210216
The argument goes something like this. We must impeach Bush because: 1) He is obstructing justice and covering up his and the Vice President's crimes in outing a CIA agent and 2) we can't risk allowing him to have others break more laws and endanger national security knowing the President will abuse the power of the pardon.
They would continue to stonewall and so no one would ever know if they actually comitted any crimes. The public so despises both of them that they would easily believe it. If, by some freak accident, they actually divulge all the information about the Plame affair, at a minimum, it will show that both the President and the Vice willfully and lawlessly declassified sensitive information and ordered the outing of a CIA agent.
We have to impeach. The president is abusing the power of the pardon to cover up his treasonous crimes.
Of course I don't make a deal with you, "on any other liberal blog". Don't be silly.
Bengt Larsson
Wish I could say I'm surprised. Behind the big rattling saber, a chickenshit. If you're not a Republican, you should think about switching. You'd be a standout.
Impeach Bush for what, again? Using a power that is Constitutional? Supporting Congress's investigation of warrantless eavesdropping seems like a far better way to build a case for impeachment, if that's what one wants to do. After all, FISA specifically outlaws warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens by the government.
Again though, it all comes back to this question: What will a failed impeachment effort resolve?
If the Democrats could pull off framing the impeachment proceedings as: The president is abusing the power of the pardon to cover up his and the Veep's crimes of outing a covert CIA officer, working on WMD proliferation no less, so we must impeach because he will have others in the DOJ, DOD, etc..., break more laws knowing they will be pardoned.
It fails because the Republicans hold strong. The 2008 election becomes a referendum on holding Bush accountable. An impeachment proceeding would tie the Republicans to Bush. Right now they are jumping ship, but an impeachment would force them back on. 70+% of the country despise Bush and Cheney. Would they change their mind over a failed impeachment? I don't think so. I think the politics of impeachment favor the Dems.
I really like Orion's idea of withholding funding for the Bush library.
Maybe its just me, but I think that's the sort of hitting at his legacy that would really bother Bush, and I don't see any reason the Democrats can't do it.
that'll show him alright!
One censure vote for each and every signing statement wherein WPE instructs the applicable agency to violate the law.
My personal fantasy would be for the new President to declare Bush and Cheney to be "illegal enemy combatants" on Inauguration day, 2009, hold them at Gitmo for 100 days or so, then ship them off to The Hague for trial on war crimes charges.
"WHAT should they do to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage?
What ARE they doing to prevent Bush and Cheney from doing any further damage?
What have they EVER done to prevent Bush and Cheney from further damage?"
"You can at least give your congressperson some direction and say, "IMPEACH! NOW!"'
All good questions, and you make an excellent point. If impeachment is the only thing they can do to stop the destruction, then that is what they must do. Just don't let it stop there.
If impeachment is the only thing they can do to stop the destruction, then that is what they must do. Just don't let it stop there.
I couldn't agree more with you about it not stopping there.
And just to clarify, I don't think that impeachment is the only thing THEY (as in the Dems) can do. I think many commenters have pointed out that there are plenty of good options out there that might be more effective than impeachment.
All I'm saying is that WE as citizens should demand impeachment in the hopes that at the very least it will get the Dems moving and hopefully they will choose some other option. I'm just saying we need to turn up the heat on the Dems and make them do something.
I think that's simply the only way to get them to listen.
"The president is abusing the power of the pardon to cover up his and the Veep's crimes of outing a covert CIA officer, working on WMD proliferation no less, so we must impeach because he will have others in the DOJ, DOD, etc..., break more laws knowing they will be pardoned."
That's what Congress is going to impeach the President on? Really? A speculative crime in the future--"he will have others in the DOJ, DOD, etc..., break more laws knowing they will be pardoned"--that has yet been committed. This is just nuts.
Again, from people I've spoken to at work, everyone's pretty pissed off about the Libby commutation. People see it as an insider getting an easy ride that average people would not get. Why not let the public understand what kind of people are in this administration?
digby wrote:
I raise the question because there is no chance in hell that this 50/50 Senate will convict. None. You all may believe that there are a bunch of wonderful earnest GOP Senators just waiting to be convinced by our extremely persuasive arguments that Bush violated the constitution but you'll have to forgive me if I'm not quite as sanguine about their good intentions and devotion to the Republic. After all, they did back him every step of the way.
I also think it's dubious, but the political system must work. I think people are so disappointed in the Democrats doing essentially nothing, that they may turn away from politics altogether. And we know who benefits from fewer people voting.
Yeah but KC if you are advocating impeaching on warantless wiretapping that doesn't exactly tap into the outrage you mention and it also would have to involve changing the subject to something that was a focus of conversation a few months back.
WOW! What a question.....alternative....ideas? You really hit the jackpot here didn't you digby? Looks like people are PISSED. Hope it continues. This is just the start. Cheney/bush have lots more in store.
What's the record on the number of comments posted?
For all the heartfelt emotion poring forth here in favor of holding Bush accountable, most of the proponents of impeachment above continue to overlook a simply fact: Articles of Impeachment have to be drawn and passed by the current Democratic majority of the House.
Go back and read Pelosi's and Hoyer's statements. Show me where they threaten impeachment. Hell, show me where they use the word "outrage." Meanwhile, I can't even find a statement issued by Emanuel.
For every righteous John Conyers, there're fifty timid mice worried about appearing too partisan. God bless Dennis Kucinich, but tell me again how many of his colleagues are cosponsoring his bill calling for the impeachment of the vice president...nine, ten?
Impeachment is not going to happen.
The alternative? Take the long view. Get personally involved at the local level NOW. Politics is little more than individual people taking action, taking responsibility for their own government.
While this thread definitely feels good, it is just so much pissing in the wind.
You know, up to now I have felt the impeachment door would not open until we had a new saturday night massacre. That some event, would outrage the public and force Pelosi and Reid to pursue impeachment with real or feigned reluctance.
That is the safest route, waiting for the public to demand it.
This view was informed by the failure of the Republican impeachment of Clinton, that though they had a narrow and banal legal argument, the public knew it didn't amount to anything real, or what a reasonable person finds truly outrageous in terms of abuse of office or public corruption, thus, the effort failed, Gingrich lost the speakerdom and the GOP even lost seats in the midterms.
YET, there is also something to be said for pursuing the courage of your convictions. We forget sometimes as we scorn Bush for invoking Churchill and Truman so often to rationalize his abysmal approval ratings that the public did come around for those leaders because, (and this is absolutely key) they were right in the end
And so it could be with impeachment. If we are right, and there is a vast swath of crimes even beyond the ones we know of waiting, a cesspool of cartoonish Bond villian corruption waiting, the public will come around.
So, as Dan Rather said:
Courage.
between the FISA violations, the circumvention of the spirit of the law in the Judicial Dept. scandal, and the misplacement of billions of dollars in the Iraq war, not to mention the conduct of the war and illegal entry into the war by any valid standard, there are plenty of viable crimes for which to impeach Bush. fuck this, lets get a special prosecutor going and have at them.
this post is a nice explanation of the nuances of the issue, but when you look at it from the perspective of the non-policy-oriented, its a recipe for the stereotypical Dem response to a political crisis: "can we do this? we don't know, maybe. is it the right thing to do? yes! should we do it? yes! will we do it? well, probably not, its kinda risky, maybe."
The Republicans were able to push the Clinton impeachment because it was a simple issue that almost anyone could understand: Clinton got a blowjob and then lied about it. Impeaching Bush or Cheney would involve long-winded and abstract constitutional arguments that the masses would not care to follow. The Republicans would paint the impeachment as a political attack in time of war (And that's why we lost). The pundits and the MSM would raise their voices in agreement.
There are still plenty of people looking for excuses for this administration. Impeachment would fit the bill perfectly.
Some people want to leave Bush and Cheney in place because they are bad advertising for Republicans. I'd say that is extremely dangerous. There is essentially no limit to how bad a government/administration can get. I live in Europe, and we have this in our history.
It's better to try to impeach and fail than to comsent to this tyranny by not even making an effort.
Imagine that President Bush says: "We will delay the election; we must spend our time fighting and investigating the terrorism."
Because that worked so very well for Rudy G, didn't it?
I move for both impeachment and also afterwards a criminal charge as well that can be pursued after he and Cheney leave office. I know that we don't have the votes for impeachment but it is still important that history show that we, the people, the democrats and some repugs, were outraged over this man's audacity, his unethical and criminal behavior, his defiance of the constitution and we called him out on the carpet, we let him and the world know that we knew he was the.worst.president.ever. That he did not serve the people but rather his own friends, his own prosperity. And history will also show that the republicans blocked his impeachment, that they protected their own, rather than serving their country. That message - the act and willfullness of the people to express their anger at this idiot will be part of history and might go a long way in healing this black mark on our country and perhaps mend some ties that he has destroyed with other nations.
Thank you Dan D
That is the point I was trying to make. In many ways impeachment is quixotic and unrealistic. And yes, it might be bad strategy. But it is the necessary first step has to come from the people. It sends an unequivocal message that--to invoke the image on Digby's masthead that we ARE MAD AS HELL AND ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!
There is real outrage in this country and we need to do something with it. NOW.
Standing up for impeachment creates the groundswell. Start screaming about it, start demanding it and it will set in motion a process that will force the Dems to act.
This isn't so much about making Bush and Cheney accountable. IT IS ABOUT MAKING THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACCOUNTABLE!!!
Of course they aren't going to actually try to impeach the president. We saw what they did with the anti-war referendum, they chickened out and caved. But at least for a little while they acted like an opposition party and challenged the president.
If we can harness the anger and outrage of this moment maybe we can do something with it. And maybe, just maybe it will prod the Democrats to challenge Bush and prevent these neocon fuckwads from war with Iran and whatever crazy shit they have cooked up for the remainder of his term.
grasshopper, when you said,
"the other route, Impeachment, overrides the executive privilege claims. The Impeachment Committee (House Judiciary) is constitutionally empowered to investigate Presidential wrongdoing so a president has no right to claim executive privilege.
So why take this issue to the courts, where the odds are against us, rather that using the Impeachment Committees' special powers clearly laid out procedurally in the Constitution?"
I think you're really onto something.
We simply must have impeachment hearings to get to the bottom of the crimes committed. There is no other way.
Impeachment is not an end, it's a means for getting to the truth.
And, like it or not, there is simply no other way.
That's why they're working so hard to convince the Dems it will be political suicide.
It won't. It will just bring in the light of day.
Count one:
"By contrast, when President Bush received this fateful and historic PDB, he did not convene the National Security Council. he did not bring together the FBI and CIA and other agencies with responsibility to protect the nation. he did not even ask follow-up questions about the warning. He did, however, dismiss his CIA briefer with a comment. "All right. You've covered your ass now," Bush said, according to journalist Ron Suskind."
- The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore, p180
Actually, dig, this post of yours surprised me. Are you taking Ben Mankiewicz pills or something?
When it comes to "political calcualtions", the Democrats have always had ONE possible winning strategy -
Fight the Republicans tooth and nail on everything AND do the right thing.
How do I know this is the case? Because THEY HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING ELSE. That's how.
Had they done this, Bush and Dick Boy
wouldn't even be there now.
It gets worse. Failure to impeach means endorsement of what Bush and his Svengali have done. Nobody wants to think so, but it does. Here's how I know:
A rather pleasing majority of Democrats in the Congress (both houses combined) voted against the AUMF. But, Republican and MSM claims that "they voted for it too" have ruled the day, even though they are lies. If you think that not impeaching doesn't mean endorsement,
they will tar and feather you with the opposite and get away with it.
In the course of human events there are times when you have to stand up and fight or accept slavery. This is one of them.
It would be good to have investigations of every single criminal enterprise this administration has been involved with. They need to hammer the K Street project and the corruption there too.
I would dearly love to see these crooks impeached, but I am afraid that Dennis is correct in his assessment of how it would play out.
As unappetizing as it is, and as morally wrong as it feels, I think getting the Republican base to switch or sit this one out may be our best hope. That's why I'm hoping Rudy gets the nomination. A cross-dressing, abortion-loving, gay-friend-living divorcee with mobster connections. I think the Baptist Convention will go for it in a big way.
KC,
Bush must be impeached because he is now obstructing justice and abusing the power of the pardon to cover up his and Cheney's crime of outing a CIA operative, not because he will pardon future lawbreakers (although he has now set a precedent for doing so). It just bolsters the argument.
He also broke the law by going around FISA to eavesdrop on US citizens. Why would any law-breakers involving warrantless wiretaps tell the truth if they know they will be pardoned?
Dennis--SG mountain music,
I don't think it is a complex argument. Bush is abusing the power of the pardon to cover up his crime in outing a CIA operative. Madison and Mason both said we should impeach if the president uses the pardon to cover up his own crimes.
(Cross posted on DailyKos)
Impeachment important-even in failure.
We have the sentiment, regarding the Libby decision, behind us.
Even if the Republicans in the Senate stop impeachment from succeeding, they will identify themselves with the most reviled president in recent history. Once they have so branded themselves with a scarlet GOP, there will be no turning back the angry and disgusted electorate.
Turning out Bush and Cheney 18 months early pales in importance to turning out the morally bankrupt party that created them, lied about them, supported them slavishly, and questioned the patriotism of all who didn't immediately Hail! these wretched Caesars.
It will be worth LOSING at impeachment, to have the spectacle of the Republican Senate staring in horror at the blood on their hands which will not wash off.
For then, we'll see an electorate reach for the lever on the voting machine as if they are grasping the flush handle on a toilet.
I don't agree entirely, Digby, but I admire your taking the stand. I think that Congress has to be ready to impeach Bush on the narrow strategic ground of his refusal to comply with Congressional oversight into Executive Branch activity where underlying crimes are at issue. I also think that Congressmembers must start making the case to the public now that if there is evidence of a quid pro quo in the Libby case, this would constitute an impeachable offense. And then they should investigate the hell out of the whole thing all the way back to Curveball. There is a difference between their describing what is impeachable and their calling for impeachment, and no one ought to disagree on the need to do the former.
All that aside, the abuse and disdain that you're taking from some people for your position here really sickens me. There is no clear answer here -- and least no clear answer not rooted in Bush-level triumphalist fantasy -- and so I invite everyone who feels insulted by my saying that to take it up with me back on DKos. (I don't do Haloscan except when sorely provoked -- as I am now.)
Oh so true,
but we still have 18 months.
If only we could get Joe out of his Committee Chairmanship (damn George Soros's eyes) we would have that pretty little packeage.
C
Major Danby,
Well said. I too find the scorn for liberals from liberals over disagreeing on this issue to be reprehensible and antithetical to liberalism itself.
This is not an easy issue. Impeachment could turn out to be a huge mistake.
Moral indignation and outrage towards the Bush cult is one thing, but towards those who are in doubt over how to proceed, or even honestly oppose impeachment as a likely tactical and strategic failure do not deserve the viritol.
I myself am slowly warming to it, despite the risks, but I can fault no one for being emphatically for it, nor for those dead set against it (so long as they agree it is justified anyway).
Besides, insulting people is never a good way to convince them of anything and attacking people's motives whom you know to be solid and faithful progressives is tragic.
People here seem pretty gloomy about making any criminal charges stick . . . so how about civil courts and lawsuits? Would that be a a plausible avenue of redress?
Maybe we can't put them in prison, but we can make them _poor_. Force Bush to live out his days in a six-room ranch house on a concrete apron, eating peanut butter and jelly and boosting on malt liquor.
Would Laura stand by her man in that situation? Mmmm . . .
jeromy,
If Bush abused his constitutionally mandated power to pardon then the evidence is in the hands of...Bush. He would release it to an Impeachment Committee rather than claiming Executive Privilege, stonewalling, declaring that it was lost, etc. because...? And if it went to the courts, the Supremes would come down on which side? Honor and honesty, like Madison and Mason, are dead.
Absent an easy to understand barn burner of an issue with conclusive proof in hand, impeachment is much to be wished for and that's all.
I'm late to this party, but I don't think that impeachment (at least of Bush) thing is a good idea. Before everyone howls, let me esplain. After the Clinton years, it will be seen as a blatant political act, as opposed to the serious constitutional remedy that it should be. I think its well deserved, but may backfire.
Impeachment of Cheney is pretty attractve, however - should be considered. He'll probably refuse to recognize it as legitimate, crazy fucker that he is.
Hearings, hearings, hearings - keep 'em going. For those who are impatient, I know that it seems endless. But I remember the Watergate hearings, and the slow but inevitable building, building of the evidence was quite compelling over time.
I feel your pain, Digby. But the only real answer is for Democrats to start winning more elections. That's the only way to un-shit the bed.
What's the point of of impeaching Bush if we first don't get rid of Cheney? It all seems so fruitless.
It is amazing how harsh some people are regarding Digby’s and other ‘s well-considered concerns about impeachment. This is not the left’s version of the Freepers, so please be civil. I think it is clear that everyone here believes Cheney/Bush to be a criminal regime. No one is apologizing for them even if they believe an unsuccessful impeachment is not the wisest course.
If we were here a year ago I would support impeachment without hesitation, now I regretfully cannot support impeachment of Bush barring some extraordinary concretely provable revelation for all the reasons sited by Digby and others. It is too much to risk this far into the ’08 campaign. But there should be means to keep the spotlight on Bush’s criminality right up to November ’08. Repeated censures as someone suggested sounds like a viable option.
Of all the great suggestions and impassioned comments here I like Glen Tompkins idea of impeaching Gonzo to start AND forming some sort of truth and reconciliation commission that grants blanket amnesty to lower level government workers who might have damning information on BushCo. It is not clear though how the congress would go about this. Do they have such authority? What form does it take? Obviously they cannot rely on the DOJ or any part of the executive to conduct it. It would be unprecedented to be sure. But if there was ever a time when such a high-profile investigation was needed, this is the time.
After January 2009 assuming the crooks have not completely destroyed evidence of their crimes, pardon or no pardon, they should be investigated, indicted, convicted and punished to the full extent of the law. Barring that possibility, declare them enemy combatants or enemies of the state, pursue them, capture them and hold them indefinitely without trial, without habeas corpus. This is their legacy. They should be hung on their own petard, literally.
Dennis,
You're right, Bush won't give up the documents/information detailing his crime of outing a CIA operative. Which then bolsters the argument for impeachment. Not only do we impeach because he commits crimes (outing CIA operatives, warrantless wiretapping, obstructing justice in the DOJ purge), but we impeach because it's the only way to get to the bottom of his crimes.
When he stonewalls during the impeachment proceeding, it then fits into the narrative and bolsters the impeachment argument. It would become a snowball rolling right through election 2008.
He won't be impeached because the House and Senate Republicans will back Bush. This then becomes the narrative of the 2008 campaign: get rid of the Republicans because they are as corrupt as Bush and Cheney and don't believe in Justice, Democracy, apple pie, etc...
It is a political gamble, that probably isn't necessary, but it would be the right thing to do and might pay dividends of a super-majority in both houses.
No, Bush has to be impeached. The Dems have to gird their loins (assuming they have said articles), look over their rhetoric and know that this is the moment when true passion and argument have to win the day........... history demands nothing less.
Digby, I have a question for you. Is there any difference between the powers granted to the Dem Congress via the current type of hearings being pursued by the various congressional committees, and the powers granted to the Dem congress after an official impeachment proceeding begins? On a related note, during an official impeachment proceeding/hearing or investigation, do the Dems in congress have any power to suspend the powers of the president and/or vice president? If the Dem congress does have expanded powers of a useful sort following the start of impeachment proceedings, or if they can in some ways suspend presidential power, the Dems should at least begin such proceedings and tie the damn administration up for the next 18 months. The real problem is that these guys are very dangerous now and totally unaccountable to anyone. they can screw this country up in an irretrievable fashion. To not do all that can be done to stop these people basically allows this group to run roughshod over this country for the next 19 months.
I feel your pain too. I think it could succeed (not in the sense of removal from office, but politically succeed), but it would have to be done right.
I have said almost exactly your words with respect to the tidy little easy-to-understand stories that underpinned the Nixon and Clinton impeachments.
But consider Comey's testimony on the Ashcroft hospital visit. I have wondered if anyone will subpoena Janet Ashcroft or try to figure out who the Justice Department official that she called that night is to try to find out what she told them. Now, she would not be an easy witness and she might even lie. But if the call to her that night came from the President or from Card speaking for the President, it is all over. See, THIS is the kind of story that you can hang an impeachment on.
Look, in 1973, the country was being run by a bunch of out-of-control, narcissistic fascists (including Big Dick Cheney). Nobody thought that Watergate would end as it did.
But once the momentum built up, the whole thing had a life of its own.
That's why Bush's "Get Out of Jail, Free!" card for Libby is a decisive event. Scooter Libby now = Paris Hilton. Only Paris did WAY more time in jail.
Hearings, hearings, hearings. Subpoenas, testimony under oath.
Let it all come out, all of it.
Then impeach the bastards if they won't resign.
I just think this is a case where everyone, Democrat or Republican, can see a double standard at work here. A President who hardly ever commutes anybody decides to pardon a convicted felon who hasn't served a day of time for a crime linked to the leak of a CIA operative's name. And, this person happened to be a Chief of Staff for the VP. Why not let public opinion sizzle where it's at? Why do something that might actually risk turning public opinion towards the President? I mean, if the Dems put a frivolous impeachment case forward, one that everyone knows is going to get tossed, then it will be pretty easy for the Republicans to claim the mantle of persecution. They're already doing it with Libby, after all, it's just that most people aren't listening for obvious reasons.
maybe if impeachment charges were brought in the House, the resulting front-burner publicity would cause a wider consensus to develop in the country that would put pressure on congresspersons - district by district - to pass the bill of impeachment.
The same result might garner enough Senate votes to actually impeach Cheney and Bush.
The whole process would be worth it if it kept BushCo from bombing Iran or starting any other wars based on their lies and fraud.
I'm okay with not impeaching Bush *if*--all the Democrats start stepping forward and saying "George W. Bush & Dick Cheney have broken the law and SHOULD be removed from office." And if the Dems running for President pledge to prosecute the people in this admistration; in other words, make it a campaign issue.
What if this actually happens, and President Edwards is actually able to get a jury to convict Bush on eavesdropping, Cheney on War profiteering, Gonzales & Rumsfeld on perjury, only to have right-wing judges on the appeals court overturn all convictions?
Easy. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Gonzales (and John Yoo) get shipped off to the Hague for an International War Crimes Tribunal, out of range of Silberman & Sentelle. Don't know if you could get Rove out there, but I'm happy with 4/5.
I've been a Democrat since I worked on the McGovern campaign in 1972, but my parents have always been Republicans.
My mother's family have been Republicans since they came over from Ireland during the Great Famine. They were small Northern US farmers and felt at home in the Republican party. They have voted for every Republican president. They have fought in every war. They have been Christian missionaries to other continents. But in 2006 my mother decided she could no longer be associated with the the current Republican party. Her party no longer believed in anything that had drawn her family to the party for five generations, as they settled America, cleared land in America and homesteaded in America, sent their kids to land-grant colleges and to war. Now the Republican party has become merely the party of privilege, where everyone else enlists, everyone else pays taxes, everyone else is held responsible for legal lapses.
It broke my heart to drive my mother to the polls last year to help her vote for a straight Democratic ticket because she can't stand the Republican party. My mother is very informed, but she is not willing to vote for a crime syndicate that calls itself Republican. So she voted to send a labor-lawyer to Congress and a flaming Liberal to the Senate. I liked her choices, but these weren't her choices. She simply had no other options.
What is wrong with these people in the GOP, that they can turn the party of Lincoln into the party of the well-connected organized crime? Their cronies get the contracts, their cronies don't pay taxes and their cronies get exonerated from crimes ranging from self-dealing to borderline treason. Their cronies' kids don't enlist to serve in the wars that they claim to believe in, but they do get cushy jobs writing for blogs, foundations and magazines that nobody reads, and the most untalented get jobs in the administration where they get big salaries to fill jobs where they can't begin to fulfil their responsibilities. And they get defense contracts for the wars that other peoples kids were naive enough to enlist to serve in.
I'm a Democrat, so there is a side of me that sort of relishes the Bush administration's screw-ups. But as an American, and as the daughter of a very American, decent and patriotic (foemerly) Republican mother, it really, really disturbs me to see the Bush administration in action.
Impeachment sounds tougher, but is not as strong an option as pursuing a contempt of Congress charge in the case of further stonewalling on investigations of the Justice Dept. It's important to remember that a lot of the criminal activity in the Bush administration came out of the Justice Department. If Congress files a contempt of Congress charge and the Bush administration runs out the clock on that, it would be possible for a Democratic successor to Bush to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the whole can of worms connected to the Bush Justice Department.
It's time to expose the MSM for the lazy, self-important, wedded to power shills that they are. With few exceptions, KO, Shuster, Moyers, McClatchy, Thomas etc. the whole lot of the WH press corps are fawning, dawdling twits.
Hold this president responsible for disinforming that forty-two percent of voters who believe that Iraq and Al Qaeda were partners on 9-11. Prove to those voters over and over that the three-pronged bases for war with Iraq - yellowcake, Curveball, Al Qaeda partnership - was more than just incompetence by this administration, but also a collabration with the thugs in the frame-up of Iraq.
The president gave speeches over and over using bin Ladin and Hussein in the same sentence to keep the issue confused. Demand that we get to the bottom of the perpetrators who forged the yellowcake documents. Reprove the Chalabi/Curveball connection about the nonexistent mobile chemical and biological labs.
Petition congress to push to join the world court and promise the world that this nation will do everything it can to bring the criminals that caused this unnecessary and immoral war to international justice.
The vast majority of this nation deserves a chance to reassert our international moral authority. We're a little late but we need to prove to the world that we will not stand for the travesties of this administration purportedly committed on our behalf. This is the way to begin to win the peace.
I agree with Digby that we can't get an impeachment with these Republicans, and a failed impeachment is simply an exoneration. Just investigate them to a fairtheewell, and hopefully in 2009 we'll have a Congress or Executive that can do something with what the 2007-2008 Congress discovered. The investigations will undoubtedly turn up stuff that will impact the 2008 elections. These folks are so corrupt that even an ostrich with head underground can see it.
Crimes against Humanity. Bush and Cheney are War Criminals they should have been on the gallows with Saddam.
Digby you are correct.
But, so what.
Time will run out unless there is another John Dean. Unlikely. Congress must move full steam ahead anyways.
Impeach them in the court of public opinion. They may well run out the clock, but time and history will not be kind.
Lots of good suggestions have been made about ways to show our displeasure. My vote is for all of the above.
Warrantless wiretapping is an impeachable offense, and there is much left to learn about Whitehouse involvement in the "Justice" Dept. scandal. It is probably true that 17 republican senators will not break rank, but that may not remain true. It depends on their perception that their own re-election requires complete repudiation of Bush. We'll never know unless we try.
The business about justice being for other people is potentially a powerful focus point. To the extent there is support for commutation outside of Libby's known associates, it has to be a function of the noise machine. The number affected by the noise is down, and the ones still on board with Rush and friends are so stupid as to be of little effect.
Is it ok to lie under oath? Do you think Bush would commute your sentence if you were convicted of perjury? Every honest person has to answer "no" to both questions.
Congress has to take a stand. Even if we fail, and as long as we can manage PR, the effort will make a necessary statement. The failure to try will also make a statement -- that we are a bunch of masochistic pussies who watched the manly republicans slap Clinton around for an indiscretion that should never have been the subject of sworn testimony. But we will sit by and watch a truly vile criminal to smirk and thumb his nose at any semblance of decency.
i have tended to agree with your argument (for the past 3 years). i also have thought that if he and cheney are impeached and replaced the new pres could be a "housecleaning" republican and edge out the dems in an election.
while that is still a concern of mine, i now tend to believe that impeachment, whether or not it is successful, will force the GOP to take a stand for or against "law and order". it will back them in a corner. more legal work has to be done of course, and yet i think if more investigations are launched AND REPORTED BY THE MSM(!), the populace will demand some sort of action.
when i watch this president and the team around him, everything they do is audacious....
it's as if he is daring us to stop him:
stop his disembowelment of the constitution
stop his interference in the justice process
stop his obscene war in Iraq
stop his coming invasion of Iran
stop their militarization of the nation
stop their war on the poor and the middle class
I really just want to impeach Alberto Gonzales.
He sits at the crossroads of all that is wrong with this administration. Yet impeaching him does not seem at the same level as impeaching the POTUS, but uncovers so many of the same underlying crimes.
And I think it would make so many of the same points about the overall corruption of the right. Seems politically smarter, savvier and -- dare I say it -- safer.
THEY ARE TRAITORS, what more do you need?
Good analysis.
Impeachment is not our ticket out of the political ghetto.
There is no knockout in this fight. We are going to have to win it in a decision in the 11th round, i.e. 11/09.
It's NOT safer to roll over and play dead. This is the WRONG time to do nothing.
Yikes. When I started reading these comments, there were about 145 of them, and in the time it took me to read them at work, the number essentially doubled. So, at the risk of sounding repetitive, I'm skipping the most recent ones for now.
I agreed with Digby's position, that the Democrats simply don't have the votes for impeachment -- until yesterday. Before yesterday, the crimes for which Bush could have been brought up (and the standard for impeachment is essentially whatever the Senate decides it should be; the Senate could toss out a president for wearing bad ties, should two-thirds of them agree to) impressed me as nonstarters. Lying us into an illegal war? Then we're looking at dueling intelligence analyses, and I don't think the public will necessarily understand that one side is completely full of crap. Violating FISA or the Geneva Conventions? Well, Bush was just protecting America from the terrorists, and you know, sometimes you have to break a couple of eggs. Gross negligence in the Karina aftermath. Well, yeah, he's a boob, but that's not illegal.
But yesterday he gave Scooter a get-out-of-jail free card, apparently solely because the poor dear couldn't tolerate a day in the lockup. And although most of us here see it as part of a cover-up, EVERYBODY in the country knows that the only reason Scooter isn't heading to the hoosegow is because he's Bush's pal. And that privilege isn't available to anybody else. And it stinks. And, well, it's obstruction of justice, a real-life jail-time felony. (Unless your Oval Office pal pardons you.) High crime or misdemeanor indeed.
Now a couple of points have been made concerning impeachment that I didn't see mentioned together. First, an impeachment investigation nullifies a president's claim of executive privilege, and second, a presidential impeachment nullifies his pardon power. Two pretty good reasons to get this train started in my view. As others have pointed out, the Democrats, in their congressional oversight capacity, can hold all the hearings they want, and suffer through the testimony of lackeys in the early stages of Alzheimer's, and issue all the subpoenas they'd like, and watch Bush, with the connivance of far-right D.C. judges, run the clock out. To accomplish anything, the Democrats will have to wield a more effective hammer, and the hammer that the Constitution provides is impeachment.
As many have pointed out here, when the Nixon impeachment process began, few supported his removal, yet by the time he was forced from office, as Goldwater told him, his supporters "wouldn't fill a car." I remember attending a lecture by Frank Mankiewicz early in the process, and when he was asked about Nixon's impeachment, he was confident Nixon would eventually be removed because day by day, as more revelations of wrongdoing came out, his support diminished. Now in impeaching Clinton, the Republicans made two major mistakes: Clinton was a popular president, and he hadn't committed an impeachable offense. Neither is the case here. But if we were to have a presidential impeachment trial say, next August or September, then every federal campaign across the country would come down to two issues: Do you support Bush's lawbreaking, and do you support his failed war? And I'm not sure that dynamic will lead to Bush's inevitable acquittal, as a lot of Republicans will decide that yeah, this is an impeachable offense, rather than dive off a cliff to protect a dead-duck president with a record-low approval rating, who, oh, by the way, is guilty as hell. But I am sure where the Democrats doing nothing will lead: The public, correctly, will perceive the party as hopelessly incapable of mustering the resolve to stand up for its convictions. And, after a brief respite, the next generation of crooked Republicans will be right back in power doing the same heinous crap, only worse.
OK, now as to tactics, I'll go along with the idea of targeting Gonzales first. He is, clearly, the weakest link, and although I'm sure he'd commit seppuku if Bush asked nicely rather than roll over on his lord and liege, by targeting him, Conyers' committee can execute a warrant to seize the RNC servers, and we can learn just how effective their e-mail deletion programs have been. And I'm figuring there's enough there to blow open the investigation, and the rest of the rats will be begging to sell out their children, never mind Bush and Cheney, to avoid jail time. Do Cheney next (the Senate need not confirm Bush's choice of a replacement), and then get to the main show.
I just don't see where the Democrats have much to lose by pursuing the impeachment of a deeply unpopular, serially lawbreaking president. And adopting a defeatist attitude will inevitably result in defeat. The real downside is believing that something short of extraordinary action can will produce anything other than nightmarish results.
Let's clear something up right now:
A contempt of Congress citation is as much of a joke as threatening to tell Mom, or threatening to put it on their permanent record. It's pathetic, and combined with 50 cents will buy a can of soda from a vending machine. Keep in mind that if Congress does cite for contempt, guess who gets to decide whether anything happens with that citation? The Attorney General -the same AG who claims a legal right to torture people so long as they aren't killed or suffer organ failure.
Kucinich has already introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney, so we can start there. Adding Bush and Gonzalez shouldn't be much trouble, either. All it takes is for Congress to start impeachment hearings.
Anything less than a real effort to impeach Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez equals consent for their numerous crimes.
I agree with everything Rocky Anderson said about impeachment and the Democrats in this Democracy Now! interview from June 25, 2007.
This president and his admin are so tone-deaf, so wantonly brazen, so reverse-Midas that they cannot possibly avoid self immolation. Many here have a terrific eye for analysis, and I echo much of the sentiments. However, a great big shoe is yet to drop and 18 mos is time enough for some good ol' fashion reckoning
Those who believe that pursuing impeachment is a futile path have already given up on our country. It's that simple.
It's not about the end result. It's about the message it sends to our citizens. After six and a half years of the bar lowering to depths never before seen in my lifetime, the bar would be raised. We need that, people, if our nation is to survive and thrive.
CALL NANCY PELOSI @1-202-225-0100 AND DISCUSS IMPEACHMENT. The lines are open during D.C. business hours.
regardless of whether there is impeachment, i think these "gentlemen" should be frogmarched to court as soon as they leave office and charged with treason.
If not now...never!!
Digby said this: "My question was whether a failed impeachment would actually end up exonerating Bush rather than holding him accountable."
Exonerating him according to whom?
This is where the "realism" enforces status quo. For all our ridicule of the David Broders of the world, we still find ourselves reaching for the knee pads.
Listen, I'm equaly defeatist. Impeachment will not work. History may not even ever recognize it. Martians may visit our ruins and laugh at how pathetic we were. God may be a colossal cold-blooded lizard. You never know. But a principled stand is beautiful in and of itself, even as tragedy. Beautiful to whom? To someone who visits our grave; someone we would have loved to have known in our lifetime. Somebody with a generosity of spirit who looks to history for strength in dealing with something perhaps less insane than all of this. An aesthetic of purpose born out of love.
Political "realism" is a never-ending disappointment. It is pre-scripted by philistines with a lot of money.
Here is the realism that you so-called realists plagiarize: Impeachment won't work.
But there's more.
Neither will the election bullet that takes 19 months to travel from the barrel of the gun.
Personally, I think if you want grounds to impeach Bush that are truly going to cut across party lines enough to get the job done, I think you have to start here:
www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
Then take a look at this:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?
i=e...rmanjudis080103
There are a number of other examples of the Bush administration using the power of the Executive branch to deliberately cover up and conceal even more evidence implicating the Saudis. This seems to me to be as cookie-cutter an example of an impeachable offense (indeed, treason) as you are liable to get, IMHO.
Is haloscan vaporising random posts?
Or is it vaporising posts bigger than a certain number of lines? What is happening here?
R.A.C.: Your "I challenge you to a duel" act is a farce. Your point is that David Brooks will never warm up to impeachment so why bother. Now you want us to check your authenticity. I'm non-partisan on this one.
Investigate, subpoena, censure, repeat repeat repeat. We need the truth, we need to try to restrain any further hiding of or destruction of records, we need testimony from every last player, from the leads to the bit players. We need this information because we'll be spending the next several generations trying to undo their damage.
Facts on the record. The kind of investigation they've done at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? We need to do the exact opposite of it. Every player in this administration needs to be debriefed and questioned, and hopefully, in the process, turned back toward serving their country.
I wish I knew more about the law. Is impeachment our only way of ensuring that we get this information? Is it really the only way of forestalling still more unconstitutional acts? Are there other means of enforcing subpoenas and document productions? Bush says no, I'm the decider, and I've decided y'all don't get page 1 about any of this stuff...and there's nothing else to do but say, mkthx, so sorry we bothered you? Even theoretically? Have we ceded every bit of power to the executive branch already?
What if people sent me money for a plane ticket and I went and put one or all of them under citizen's arrest? I mean, really? I'm sure I wouldn't live to tell the tale, but truly, why can't we arrest them? Hammer an eviction notice on the White House door? He said he's the decider, but if we decide we don't think so, don't we outrank the bastard? I want him out of our house.
And frankly, I'm not afraid of the military, the National Guard, or my local law enforcement personnel, because although a national confrontation would no doubt get ugly, I truly believe that Bush has lost the armed forces. Attempting to enforce martial law means people would die, but the vast majority of our armed forces and law enforcement officers are not going to turn on their country's citizens.
This has been disorganized and inelegant of me. BFD.
Strange that people who claim to be truly interested in long term GOP success cannot see that getting rid of Cheney/Bush ASAP would be the best medicine for the party AND the country. It is clear they do not give a shit about the country; I guess they really do not care about their party either.
Abu Gonzo and Lurita "I can't remember Doan" have gone before Congress and lied to them, committed perjury and mocked Congress. The response from Democrats?
'Oh, we're going to investigate'.
We all know that if someone from the Clinton administration had gone to the Hill and did what these jokers did, the Republicans in the House would have set them on fire, right on the Floor.
So, the chance that these milquetoasted Dems will find any gumption to build up a head of steam to sign onto H Res 333, or any action against the Idiot Boy is very unlikely.
History will point to the failure of Democrats to act as a serious, very serious breech of duty. One impeaches based upon principle, not upon whether or not a conviction can be assured in the Senate. The House Republicans certainly had no second thoughts as they railroaded Clinton into his impeachment. It's quite sad: the Republicans, as much as I hate those pieces of garbage with every fiber in my body at least stand for principle. Democrats that we have in Congress stand for NOTHING. It makes me sick.
Gonzo and Doan taunt Congress, and nothing happens. They smirk as they lie, waving it in their faces. Nothing happens. If these two bit punks cannot be called to account, there simply is no hope of justice every coming out of Congress. Ever.
So, ya .. I agree. But not for the same reasons you do.
INHERENT CONTEMPT. It goes hand in glove with impeachment.
Executive privilege? It does not apply in impeachment hearings, period. There's very solid precedent to that effect.
But why mess with the courts, and the involved delay, even if you know you'll win? Issue an inherent contempt citation instead. Much faster.
As for charges going nowhere without "information which we don't get while Bush is in office" -- they're required to turn it *all* over during an impeachment hearing. Courts or no courts. If Bushco tries to use the courts to delay, or simply refuses to turn the information over,....
it's back to INHERENT CONTEMPT.
Send the Capitol Police to arrest Cheney and lock him in the Capitol until he testifies. In a hardcore standoff over something where Congress's rights are crystal-clear, like this, the military will back Congress, not Cheney, and that's the endgame.
To those asking about alternatives to impeachment:
INHERENT CONTEMPT. Look it up. A majority vote of *ONE HOUSE* can order someone who refused to obey a Congressional subpoena, or who refused to give honest testimony to Congress, to be dragged in in chains and imprisoned in the Capitol. Executed by the Capitol Police, or the DC Police if the Capitol Police ask them to. The Capitol Police have a very wide physical area of jurisdiction including the *White House*.
After an inherent contempt citation to (for instance) Secretary of State Rice (who has already violated a subpoena), the Capitol Police can literally walk into her State Department office, arrest her, and drag her back to the Capitol in handcuffs.
All of this 2008 micro-strategy will be completely beside the point if George Bush takes it upon himself to initiate a full-scale war with Iran. At that point, every single person will just shut up and do exactly as they are told. That is what happened last time, isn't it.
Don't underestimate the "fool me twice" factor. A war with Iran would trash Bush's support even more, just as the invasions of Cambodia and Laos didn't help Nixon.
A false-flag attack, Bushco bombing the Pentagon and blaming it on Iran, something like that might work. But probably nearly half the population would immediately assume it was Bushco (God, at this point I would,) and quite a lot of the rest would want Bush removed from office even if it was really Iran, on the grounds that there was no way Bush could handle the war with Iran properly given how he screwed up the last war.
Wait a minute folks!
If we don't throw this tea into Boston harbor... and... and... if we ask really nicely, then maybe... maybe King George will stop imposing all those excessive taxes on us!
Whaddaya say!
Shpilk hit the nail on the head. The republicans must be laughing their arses off at the dems. They have lied under oath so much its a joke. Nothing happens. What more is there to investigate?! No, mabie we should wait and keep the powder dry for something really bad like outing undercover agents or starting a war of aggression based on lies. I can't imagine being a soldier driving around waiting to be IED'd while the dems draft another nonbinding resoultion.
You either stand with the constitution (impeachment investigations) or you don't. There is no middle ground here. It really is that simple. Congress is REQUIRED to defend the Constitution. There is no should we or should'nt we here. It matters not what time it is, what the final result will be, or how people will see it. What are doing here if we are not defending the constitution? What is so hard to understand about this? Pick your side.
Perhaps we could petition the Brits to take us back. That way at least we could have some degree of accountability in our government. If they won't take us (they would be insane to), we should at least give Texas back to Mexico.
regardless of whether there is impeachment, i think these "gentlemen" should be frogmarched to court as soon as they leave office and charged with treason.
joe in oklahoma | 07.04.07 - 1:17 am | #
Sigh. Sorry, but this is one of my pet peeves. Treason is the only crime that is defined in the Constitution, and it is giving aid or comfort to the enemy during wartime. Fucking up a war so badly that the military effort is doomed may indeed allow the enemy to realize its goals, but it doesn't constitute providing the enemy aid or comfort, and, therefore, doesn't rise to the level of treason under the Constitution. Bush's actions have been profoundly corrosive to the foundations of this country, but when we toss around the term "treason" without regard to the precision with which it is defined in the Constitution, the term can be used to criminalize just about any behavior that those in power don't approve of. Which, I'd surmise, is exactly why it's precisely defined in the Constitution.
hometown Chicago says it best:
"Those who believe that pursuing impeachment is a futile path have already given up on our country. It's that simple."
I don't know what's more deflating: a White House torching the Constitution on a daily basis, or Dem/progressive leaders and bloggers doing nothing in the face of it--and actively arguing against action, in fact.
Say it ain't so, digby.
*NEWSFLASH* [I've read through about half the comments - beginning and end - and haven't seen this mentioned.]
GRAND JURY material may be turned over to Congress IF it's to an IMPEACHMENT COMMITTEE/PROCEEDING of the House (rather than only 'non-grand jury material' related to an impeachment, as Digby's post implies). The precedent is clear from the Watergate Grand Jury era. I spelled out my thoughts on this, and included a link to a DOJ/OLC analysis with cites to the court cases, at The Next Hurrah, in emptywheel's 'Off the Record Club' thread.
This means that, by following procedure, Congress has a 'ready-made' investigation of a grave national security breach already in hand, courtesy of the Special Counsel. An investigation that leads to the very people who need the case built against them for impeachment.
Digby has actually half-way made the case for this very approach quite clearly here I think, but she overlooked the ability and right of Congress to use all the (years-worth of) grand jury testimony already painstakingly compiled by Special Counsel Fitzgerald, to vastly speed up the process, if we (Congress...) were to first focus on that CIA Officer outing - which I think we should.
And bubba - Yes, there is a difference between normal Congressional oversight hearings (which the Supreme Court has said have to have some sort of legislative purpose) and Congressional impeachment hearings (which are a part of the INHERENT powers of Congress to investigate "high crimes and misdemeanors" not necessarily connected to any legislative remedy, but only to potentially effect removal from office, depending on what the evidence demonstrates). Inherent, plenary powers which the other branches can't interfere with - the kind of power we endlessly hear about with regard to the Executive Branch's "Commander in Chief" over the Armed Forces inherent, plenary Constitutional power. Potent, available, and unused by this Congress. Unused in large part, I believe, because too many people (in the media, in Congress, and in the country) WANT to defer to a president - a "leader" they can salute, look up to, relinquish their will and even their liberty to - rather than have the Congress truly leading the way for the country, as it was intended to do.
The reason impeachment, whether a conviction is obtained or not, is so vital, is because it reasserts OUR authority in this government. We are all acting as helpless subjects of a de facto King, otherwise. The same goes for Congress's tragically unused inherent, plenary war powers - which could UNILATERALLY end the occupation of Iraq. [But talk about your modern-day 'third rail' power of politics... The whole concept seems to be a state secret these days.]
It's Independence Day, America. It's time for Congress to re-assert its INDEPENDENCE from the Executive Branch, in honor of our Founders. Time to IMPEACH and time to END THE OCCUPATION: The power is all ours and fully vested in our representatives in the Legislative Branch of government.
Those who oppose attempting impeachment may be missing an important point. Material that is presented or discovered during impeachment investigations may further weaken Bush and Cheney's already sagging support among congressional Republicans, who have been actively distancing themselves from the administration by saying that its leaders have betrayed "true conservatives."
By supporting impeachment, congressional Republicans can wash their hands of Bush politically. Who is to say that they will not consider it, especially if the really dirty laundry starts stinking on the TV news? It may come down to political survival for a whole bunch of Reps who want some chance of hanging onto their cushy jobs. If Democrats permit them to save face by declining to mention how Republicans enabled Bush's abuses for the last several years, maybe they'd make a deal to impeach Bush's whole inner circle.
Oddly enough, impeaching BushCo might be the only thing that could save the Republican party from its own wacky right wingers.
Off topic--what is the largest number of comments Hullabaloo has ever had on one thread?
People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434...t0434409/
quotes
One simple, practical, and obvious reason to impeach is that not to take action opens the door to a third party spoiler candidate in '08. Despite the lesson Nader's Raiders learned in the last 6 1/2 years, a candidate who blasts the GOP Crime Mob AND who blasts the Dems for appeasing the GOP will find a hungry crowd, and you can say "Hello, Preznit Thompson!"
For the Democrats not to impeach for high crimes is to abdicate their Constitutional duty. Impeachment wasn't inserted into the Constitution by accident. To appease the despots defiles the Constitution, and renders the impeachment clause moot....until Republicans re-take the House under a Dem president.
Investigations are and will be met with stonewalling, which leads to subpoenas, which lead to long court battles that will likely be decided by Bush appointees...
Only the powers granted to Congress in an impeachment will expose the extent of the horror.
The crime to hit is PlameGate. Who doesn't love a good spy story. This one is a doozy. Why hasn't Waxman subpoenaed Fitz to the House Oversight Committee? His subpoenaed testimony alone will make impeachment obvious. With impeachment comes Fitz's GJ docs, and that will expose the monsters who fabricated intel to start a war, outed a spy in time of war, and destroyed the CIA operation monitoring WMDs in the mid-east.
By then, we might even get that conviction in the Senate. And even if not, the GOP would be crippled.
Impeachment should be the only thing on the agenda and the table.
The public is looking for leadership and a commitment to the finding truth. Keep forcing the issue and either 10 Repulican Senators will have a conversion experience or, come '08, the Republican Party will cease to exist as a meaningful political entity.
The ONLY time Democrats should reach across the aisle is with the flaming torch of Reality to apply it to the feet of their Republican counterparts, and bipartisan deals should be predicated on Republicans crawling across the aisle, begging for inclusion.
As indicated by the current polls, the effectiveness of Democrats in the eyes of the American public between now and the '08 elections is NOT how much is accomplished by new legislation, but how effectively they demonstrate the Republican alliegence to Buvh, Neocon ideology and perversion of goverment.
If these guys are as guilty as we all believe they are, and the Republican senators don't vote to impeach, then that would reflect poorly on THEM, wouldn't it? In my eyes, something like that could cripple their party for a generation, if they're as guilty as we all believe they are.
National security will remain an issue of primary importance for the foreseeable future. The Democrats cede the ground on this issue with their craven political calculations before they do anything. Having the fucking balls to stand up to an out-of-control president might shake people out of their long-held perception that the Democratic Party is the party without any cojones.
Libby's commutation is obstruction of justice. If these pathetic excuses for politicians cannot grab this narrative and run with it, why do they even bother showing up?
THE REASON TO IMPEACH IS TO TIE IT AROUND THE REPUBLICANS NECKS BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Follow me here:
Full hearings in the House Judiciary Committee will develop the whole stinking pile of corruption that Bush oversees. The Bill of Impeachment then goes to the House Floor.
Whether it does or does not pass the House WITH A MOUNTAIN OF EVIDENCE SUPPORTING IT, in the election hang it on every Republican (and Blue Dog Democrat) who voted against it and defeat them.
If it passes the House, but fails in the Senate, then also hang it on every Republican Senator up for election in '08 (and there are a lot of them)and defeat them.
It's not about Bush, it's about getting a Democratic super-majority in the next Congress, so we can start to rebuild and repair our country and our government.
This thread has helped me to see why the Democrats don't really do anything to stand up to the Republicans: They are in fact reflecting the will of many of their constituents who are too happy to go along with their "don't rock the boat," wait-til-the-moment is right strategies.
This anger and outrage will dissipate all too soon and Libby will be yet another thing that we whine about. Because that's what we do, whine and complain.
No wonder our side keeps losing.
It's starting to become obvious that we are still one or two more scandals away from impeachment. I hoped that the Libby business would do it, but it is becoming clear that it won't -
the fear level is still too high.
So, barring film of an Oval Office blow job, it looks as though the imp card will not get played.
I want compensation for this. I have thought about what I am willing to accept in return for not defending the Constitution and the rule of law.
This is what I want:
Defund the war now.
This ain't gonna happen either. Perhaps the only sensible thing left for me to do is to change my registration to Republican and vote for Peter T. King next year. After all, my investments have done very well under the current regime.
Why should I care about anything else?
there is so much criminality hiding behind the walls of the White House that if Congress ever started impeachment proceedings it would be like a dam bursting a flood of lies, deceits and crime would flood the land.
.
speaking of political calculation Digby, if you think about it, probably the best strategy for the republicans to get the boat anchor of bush and cheney from around the necks of all republicans would be for the republicans to initiate impeachment. That way they get clean separation from bush and cheney without any taint on their insidious ideology - they could plausibly claim that bush and cheney were crooks and liars that screwed up everything they touched, that they are not "true" conservatives.
.
The Hague
Prosecuted by an international tribunal for war crimes. The only defense attorney allowed will be Alberto.
Troll with the punches,
Yes, we're not PP's. We have such things as "doubt" and "concern." It's part of our collective character to actually consider the costs and benefits of a course of action before leaping.
If we wanted to just barge into everything, we'd vote republican.
Naturally it can go too far, but don't fall into envying that in our foes which makes them both bold and reprehensible.
Dan D
If valuing standing for what I believe in and placing action over the what if's of how things play out in electoral politics makes me a PP I'll gladly accept that title.
A cursory reading of American history will tell you that PROGRESSIVES as opposed to Democrats have actually stood for issues and in some cases laid their lives down to defend them.
If progressives took the tepid path you are suggesting and fretted about how things would play out for the dear old Democratic party we'd still have slavery, 7 day work weeks, children working in factories. Women and African-Americans wouldn't be able to vote.
Sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome--let's call them SS if you like--make apologies for gutless cowards who represent the lesser of two evils and enable them to pursue strategies that lead to endless defeat.
For all of those on this thread who claim that you are taking the wise and prudent path I'd like to point out that these tactics haven't gotten us very far in the last 8 years.
And one other thing.
Have you seen poll numbers for Congressional Democrats? They aren't anything to write home about.
It is this pusilanimity, this constant tendency to calculate as opposed to take a stand that makes Democrats unpopular.
Granted it is a right wing talking point, but there has to be at least an iota of truth for it to work, right?
Fight people. Fight!
digby, usually I agree with you. Not this time; this time I agree with Whispers and Antonius, and the other people making the case for impeachment.
The Dems are worried about impeachment being seen as "political"?
Good Gad. That's exactly what the Republicans wanted, and no doubt had in mind, when they went after Clinton.
Here's the thing: if the Democrats move to impeach, they have the law and the Constitution, the will of the voters, and the evidence on their side.
If the Democrats decide to continue with not impeaching, they have the administration, and probably the media on their side - two groups that have proven profoundly unreliable when it comes to making Democrats look good.
Choosing NOT to impeach is a political act, and one that comes saddled with the labels of pandering, cowardice, wishy-washyness, and so on.
Choosing to impeach is a political act that comes with the rule of law and standing up for one's principles.
The Democrats can't sit on their thumbs, either politically or legally. By not pursuing impeachment, they are saying that the law is less important to them than worrying about what the media thinks of them, that principle and doing the right thing is less important than whether they might lose a few conservative votes.
I mean, hello!
The Democrats need to decide whether or not they are going to stand on the side of law and justice, or on the side of pandering and corruption and naked political calculus.
By arguing that impeachment is too risky, that there's little chance of "winning" you've bought into the Republican frames that impeachment is more political than legal or ethical, and that politics is about polls and winning, rather than standing up for the American citizenry and the laws that protect them.
Are we a nation of laws? Or a nation of suck-ups worried about how popular they are?
Several folks above have pointed out that failure to convict on a bill of impeachment is tantamount to exoneration for Bush. I would like to add that failure to impeach is also tantamount to exoneration for Bush.
If there is no impeachment, the right wing will say
"Well, you had your chance to object when you had the Congress and you refused to do so. Therefore you didn't really think Bush did anything wrong."
Isn't it amazing how easy it is to scribble right wing talking points (although I have to admit that they wouldn't use the word 'therefore' - too many letters).
Hey Digby - just because many who posted here disagree strongly with your expressed coolness, or sense of futility, about impeachment, there's no way in hell that anyone the least bit familiar with your work here would for an instant think of you as a "GOP appeaser."
No doubt you're right about the zero chance of passage of an impeachment by the Senate at present.
But impeachment hearings will bring forth evidence and testimony about all manner of criminality, previously hidden by the administration's wall of secrecy and obstruction. There will be no more executive privilege claims in an impeachment hearing. And Fitz's grand jury transcript becomes admissible, just for starters. With all this televised before the public, and the November 2008 election looming ever closer, the Repug Senate votes may begin to turn, just as they turned on their man Nixon.
Again, thanks for everything you do, and especially, thank you for starting this thread. I hope to meet and talk with you someday, maybe if we're sent to the same concentration camp after the mass arrests begin.
Digby: You're always wonderful, but you are too fearful here. Maybe it's too many years of Code Yellow. Maybe it's been too long since we were all out at massive demonstrations wearing our tie-dyed t-shirts. I'm with Meteor Blades at Kos and Whispers here in this thread. The problem is that the citizenry is too passive. The politicians in Washington have to have a good, universal kick in the ass. Further, the populace has to stop asking permission to exercise its power. One of the greatest dangers now looming is that the Democrats will assume office and leave the Bush legal regime in place--signing statements and the whole shebang. In fact, I wouldn't put that sort of behavior past Hillary Clinton. (Which is while I'll vote for Nader over HRC.) Jefferson talked about the right of revolution. Martin Luther King knew that the Democrats and the Republicans were not going to hand him his own rights. I can't fault Nancy Pelosi for her comments--after impeachmennt of Bush and Cheney, she'll be president. All in all, there is more than enough evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. Further, because impeachment is political, it doesn't require the beyond-the-reasonable-doubt standard of criminal law. Many of the staffers also need a very clear message that they can go to jail--no more Oliver Norths. A real impeachment by the Democrats will also return impeachment to its proper status--not just a way of getting at Bill Clinton, his ego, his lack of seriousness, and his manipulations. (Don't get me going.) So let's act like citizens. Impeach. Olbermann gave his J'Accuse last night, and the citizens have to let everyone know who is the sovereign here. Otherwise, we are going into serious decline, with more spying, more Supreme Court decisions like the most recent ones, and more abuse of the vast majority by a small minority. Let's take the risk. JJH.
Well Bush might be safer because of Amertica's track record of shock and awe responses in its foreign policy, but Blair certanly faces arrest if he sets foot in several contries now.
Still Bush never left America before he was President so that will not bother him much I guess.
Impeachment would serve no purpose! It's too late in the game to begin an impeachment hearing. The name of the game now is to prevent any further dammage. Hearings and investigations will help to do that as will a watchful public and congress.
Commuting Libby's sentence has done more dammage to the Repulicans. Right now they are saddled with a failed war, Gonzales failed DOJ, Guantanamo, corruption everywhere, Katrina - still, obvious administration obstruction of on-going investigations, and on and on. If Congress continues to investigate there will be more new revelations weekly leading up to and through the elections. Every tree they bark-up has a cat in it.
Republicans couldn't have failed more spectacularly, obviously, and publically. They have handed Congress and the Whitehouse to the Democrats for a generation at least. Impeachment would distract the public and press from all this and benefit the Republicans by providing them with a bullhorn issue.
DON'T IMPEACH!!
What we could be doing is talk about after the President leaves office. Then we are not talking about a sitting President, he has no levers to pull, no executive privalege, access to a butt-load of documents and records, and government agencies on life support. Thats gonna be an interesting time.
Another thing: who's to say that, given the way things have been going with this administration, there will be another election?
Impeach on the narrow question of refusal to comply with subpoenas.
My guess is that impeachment under the current conditions will simply allow the Bush administration to run out the clock. So I am in the impeachment not-so-much camp. Congress should investigate agressively, and if new facts arrive that increase the likelihood of conviction in the impeachment process, that is when it is time to move ahead with impeachment.
The alternative action this congress needs to work on is telling the president that he cannot make a unilateral military attack another country (i.e. Iran) without prior approval from congress. Bush, Cheney and the neocons are just crazy enough to think that launching another war is the solution to their problems. Congress needs to put a fence around the craziest of their ideas. At present congress is in tacit consent to any military action that Bush wants to take. He is too dangerous to be given that degree of freedom.
I agree w/JJHunsecker that the real danger at this point is that the next President and Congress will not move to undo what Bush has done.
I have to wonder if the NSA will be leashed under a Dem president. Will FISA be revised? One can go on and on.
I would like to ask the Dem candidates what they would do to enforce the principles not just the practice.
This thread should be required reading for everyone in Congress.
More talk about the threat of impeachment would be helpful. Continual hearings on specific infractions will be politically useful, but the charge of causing legislative gridlock must be preempted and redirected by the Democrats, or they will be tarred with it.
If in '09, a Democrat-controlled Congress and WH choose to pursue the scoundrels in the courts, in the background, some convictions might happen, no pardons, and lots of sustained periodic publicity to remind voters of what Republicans are capable of when in power. Eight years of that and we might see a highly unusual sixteen-year Democratic Presidency in the making.
Okay, if we can't try them once they're out of office, we CAN do THIS:
http://justjohn.livejournal.com/...com/
175769.html
Republicans laugh when they read stuff like this. "Mabye we should wait and investigate more." The president said on national TV that he wiretapps US citizens without warrents. DONE! Thier is plenty of other stuff out there. The republicans would have impeached a loooong time ago as we should have. Here we are though calculating ourselvs into oblivion.
This debate is irrelivant anyway. Then constitution demands to be defended. Period. It is clearly under assult. No one but the neocons deny that. Its stunning that people are even on the fence! I would have never thought that in my lifetime there would be a debate between so called progressives about weather or not to defend the Constitution. Letting this administration get away is complicity plain and simple.
We have pretty much everything on our side. Evidence, the Constitution, the people who will only grow in numbers when the true extent of the filth is uncovered. Yet we still have many here, "Ughh lets be carefull. People might get mad. We dont have time." I'm sorry but this is bullshit! Stand up for your country or stand up in support of the unitary excutive. I'm sorry for the "vitriol" but i'm pissed! More people sould be too.
Many of you people don't seem to grasp that the Democratic party is THE MEANS not the END IN ITSELF.
Democratic victory alone doesn't mean shit. Unless you are a congressperson, a Democratic party insider or a corporation who has just given them a wad of cash and are waiting for some good ol' corporate payback.
The issue isn't if the Democrats win, it's WHAT KIND OF DEMOCRATS win.
If you actually believe in principles and political values you have to see that the Democratic Party doesn't always adhere to those principles. They need a swift kick in the pants to be reminded that We The People actually expect them to DO something!
Whispers said it all above at 3:33.
if democrats can stand by and do nothing but whine and moan while the country is run by criminals then democrats STAND FOR NOTHING.
.
Waitaminnit!
Me: If we survive into a next Administration, Bush can be arrested and tried.
Even if he's pre-emptively pardoned every OTHER member of his cesspit crew.
adam: No; he can pardon himself so long as he hasn't been impeached. It's really amazing how broadly the courts have defined the pardon power. When they call it 'plenary,' they ain't kiddin'.
adam | 07.03.07 - 9:41 pm |
Oh? Then why did Ford pardon Nixon? Impeachment hadn't been completed, by any means.
I think that most of us agree that a perfect world would be better. Raising hell is fun but not likely to be productive in the long term. Look what unfettered Republican idealism has accomplished in the past eight years. Yes, our brand of idealism might be better, but it's still idealism.
You either stand with the constitution (impeachment investigations) or you don't. There is no middle ground here. -- TruAmerican
Oh, this is too rich. In other words, "You're either with us or against us." Black and white, eh? Good vs. Evil? And the handle, "TruAmerican." You can't make this shit up.
All you have proved is that you are no better than they are. You've adopted Bush's radical rhetoric and his simplistic world view.
Still, after 300-odd comments, I see a lot more heat than light from the pro-impeachment side. Unless we find Bush with the proverbial "live boy or dead girl" he's going to serve out his term. Therefore, the smart and the right thing to do is to encourage our legislators to weaken and contain Bush as much as possible for the remaining year and half while we focus on getting out the vote for 2008. If the investigations bear fruit, then I'll be thrilled to get on board the impeachment train.
Here's a good summary of the arguments for both sides of the impeachment debate:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
ta...ch_b_54912.html
Taylor Marsh's bottom line:
"So in order to get the conversation going on impeachment a case must be made. It simply has not so far and until that happens everything else is just wild-eyed liberals howling at the moon. ... I don't have the answer on this one, but we clearly have not made a constitutional case on the merits. Screaming about impeachment doesn't get it done either. Using the word over and over again won't. Only a methodical case will ... ."
Defending the constitution is not idealism. How would you explain this current situation to a child? We are a nation of laws under the constitution. No one can violate the constitution. Well you can if you can get away with it and the other side doesn't have time, political will or integrity. Then the connstitution is just a stupid piece of paper as Bush has said. Game over.
Hey Henry
This country wouldn't even EXIST if it weren't for a little bit of idealism.
Pass the hotdogs!
Happy 4th of July!!!
Therefore, the smart and the right thing to do is to encourage our legislators to weaken and contain Bush as much as possible for the remaining year and half while we focus on getting out the vote for 2008.
In the light vs heat department--please tell me how you are going to frame this for your congress people.
Which letter do you think is clearer and more actionable:
A. Dear Congressperson X, Please weaken and contain Bush as much as possible
Thanks,
R.A.C
Or this one
B. Dear Congressperson X, Impeach these motherfuckers NOW
Thanks,
R.A.C.
Let the congresspeople figure out how to make the case. That is their job
It is your job as a citizen to agitate your congresspeople and get them to act.
Other than that, agitate and get others to act.
For now, that is all we can do.
There is one set of crimes which might get the necessary Republican votes for removal in the Senate. Investigate the violations of FISA, and find out if (and how many) Senators have been subjected to illegal wiretapping. The Constitution does not require Senators to recuse themselves from this vote, and once we had solid evidence that the Bush and Cheney were even spying on Senators (both Dem and R., I'd believe) then they're finished.
Until then, keep having hearings on how much this commutation has harmed law-enforcement efforts. Republicans once thought they owned national security, too.
I agree Impeachment, though justified, is wrong here. Impeachment is way to get rid of people. The key fight is against this poisonous political movement known as conservatism.
Since the conservatives took power in 1994, we have seen a constant assault against our constitution, our laws and our Democracy. However, the leadership has changed regularly with no effect on conservative's slide into evil. Originally it was Gingrich (Bush and Rove weren't even on the radar). If Bush and Cheney are impeached , someone even more odious will take their place.
We need to stop focussing on people and start focussing on the politics and the results of conservatism. That means more investigations, more legislative action that, even if we lose, shines are bright light on how bad this movement is.
Remember, Nazism wasn't destroyed when they took Hitler's Bunker, it was destroyed when they opened the gates of Buchenwald.
In the light vs heat department--please tell me how you are going to frame this for your congress people. -- Troll With the Punches
No sweat. How about something like,
Dear Chairman Conyers,
I believe that President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence represents an abuse of the president's constitutional clemency powers. If a president can pardon any subordinate convicted of obstruction of justice, then executive branch accountability is impossible. I urge you to aggressively investigate the circumstances surrounding this matter.
Something along those lines (Also never hurts to enclose a check). It's a first draft. Then on down the line. No shortage of things to investigate with this administration. Keep Bush off balance and under fire, and keep exposing Republican corruption.
Honestly, your strategy -- disingenuously scream impeach! to get your legislators' attention -- strikes me as juvenile, and I have no doubt that it will be taken that way by your congressperson.
Even you acknowledge impeachment is fruitless. You: "In many ways impeachment is quixotic and unrealistic. And yes, it might be bad strategy. But ...it sends an unequivocal message that ... we ARE MAD AS HELL AND ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!"
Tantrum much? Since when is "bad strategy" a good idea?
See, that's rage getting the better of you. Many of the folks here seem to want revenge above all else. The best revenge against George Bush is the repudiation of his policies, a permanent Republican minority for the next generation, and a hard left turn by the country, with liberty and justice for all.
Look at the latest campaign donation numbers. Democrats are crushing Republicans. Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. If you want the country to change, focus on making sure another Republican doesn't succeed Bush.
GOT BALLS? USE 'EM call Nancy Pelosi @ 1-202-225-0100 and discuss IMPEACHMENT. (get that relief you're lookin' for.)
R.A.C
Please try to refrain from the condescension, okay?
Tantrum? Juvenile?
There is nothing juvenile about exercising the one right we have as citizens against a President who does not obey the rule of law.
That is unless you think that our consitution is juvenile
I'm with you, R.A.C.
Having balls doesn't mean you have to think with them, Mike.
I think some of you are having a hard time understanding or even listening to what many are saying here:
Impeachment doesn't necessarily have to remove the President to work. Impeachment will focus investigation on the President and prevent the administration from further lawless acts.
If we do nothing we achieve nothing.
I personally don't care what is good or bad for the Democratic party. I value what is good for my country above that.
Start investigating now!
"Please try to refrain from the condescension, okay? -- TWTP
I apologize.
I just returned from a parade where I was collecting signatures on a petition to our county board of supervisors asking the supervisors to pass a resolution in favor of impeaching Cheney. I got about 50 signatures with little effort. I could have gotten a lot more but my tongue just refused to work after a couple of hours so I had to stop.
Very few objections were raised other than "what's the use?"
Cheney should be the target of impeachment. He is thoroughly disliked and is now recognized, thanks to the Washington Post articles, as completely discredited and lacking any shred of honor.
Besides he is likely the only person alive who would make a worse president than Bush.
So asking people to support defending the constitution in the face of the most blatant violations is thinking with my balls. Wow.
Seriously R.A.C., this is a black and white situation. Please explain how letting them get away with this does not render the constitution useless. It sets a dangerous precident.
Apology accepted R.A.C.
It takes a class act to actually apologize in these threads. I guess I was getting a little overenthusiastic myself. I know we probably agree on more than we disagree.
Here's to hoping our side prevails!
We, obviously, have no power to do anything.
Short of lying down in front of tanks.
Pity, there are no convenient tanks.
Suppose our sacrifice instead were to be the sacrifice of our illusions of democracy?
It's cold, hard evil at the top of the pyramid. Get used to it.
Pffft. If Bush hasn't been impeached by what he has already done by now, he never will whilst in office.
The Bush experience has much to teach us. It has shown that it is possible to a total clown to hold the presidency. It has shown that a clown with the presidency can still consolidate massive power. It also shows that a strong opposition is a pre-requisite for a functional democracy (there isn't one now, guys).
As for impeachment, it'll never get through. As a pie-in-the-sky solution, I'd like to see the next President make the US a signitory of the ICC and, as a reconcilitory gesture to the world, send Bush & Cheney to the Hague.
=my2c
BC
Having provided a sordid assessment of our system of government, it would be wrong of me not to indicate a cure, so here goes.
F.L.I.P. It stands for For Legitimacy In Politics. What it is is, come an election, members of the FLIP party vote based on the flip of a coin.
Given enough party members, the outcome of any election becomes a coin toss. While there may not be very much difference between the ruling parties, I'm sure that they would like to have some control over which of them gets to ride on top. FLIP might just be enough of a wildcard to cause some concern at the top.
Then we submit our demands, kids...
At the Evanston, Illinois, Fourth of July parade today, the thousands lining the route gave their largest applause of the day to the participants (about 50 or so) who marched holding "impeach the president and vice president" signs. It's a start.
Seriously R.A.C., this is a black and white situation. Please explain how letting them get away with this does not render the constitution useless. It sets a dangerous precident. -- TruAmerican
I guess the question is what do you think they are getting away with? What is your case for impeachment? It's anything but black and white to me.
The Constitution gives Bush the absolute power to pardon (commute, whatever) anyone for any reason. His party and legacy will bear the scars of his actions, because this stinks to high heaven. It's unethical, and reflects a lack of respect for the law, but it's not unconstitutional. We may have suspicions about his motives, but if Pat Fitzgerald couldn't make the case against Cheney, Congress has no prayer of taking this further up, IMHO.
As I've said before, I believe that Bush's warrantless wiretapping and lack of due process for detainees violate rights guaranteed in the Constitution, but Congress has seen fit to pass legislation authorizing both. Impeaching Bush won't change these policies one iota. They will have to be (and are beginning to be) rolled back by Congress and the courts. It may take years and the damage may never be completely undone (particularly because Bush has stacked the Supreme Court --again, nauseating, but entirely Constitutional).
Also, someone mentioned Bush's lies in the run-up to the Iraq war as perhaps being impeachable. I'm sympathetic to this argument. There's no doubt Bush exaggerated and misled. But presidents can launch invasions. And Congress authorized this one. Not just Republicans but Democrats. And not just based on Bush's marketing. The intelligence was clearly faulty. There's too much gray here, and too many lawmakers supported the war to back impeachment.
What really failed here was our system. It's designed so that if one branch oversteps its authority, the others push back. When Bush did overstep his authority, he was met with a compliant Congress. They performed no oversight. And, of course, the media failed in its mission.
The good news is that our democracy is resilient. The public has largely turned against the cons and has begun throwing them out. To say the Constitution is at risk of being rendered useless is hyperbole. The framers knew that we would have crooks and liars and would-be kings as leaders, and built a system that allows the people to clean house. That's what we have to do now.
What we need is a larger majority in Congress and a Democratic president. I think we will get both in 2008. We must work to make it so. Impeaching Bush doesn't further either of those goals. In fact, it probably hurts.
As I've said here before, if you want to impeach Bush, you need to have clear-cut high crimes and misdemeanors. And you need to make a case that resonates with a majority of Americans, not just the far left. You can't impeach Bush for incompetence, ideology or just being an evil fuck. And you can't impeach him in order to go on a fishing expedition, because you just know in your heart of hearts that you'll find something to pin on him. You've got to have him dead to rights.
So, what part of this is black and white? You implied that anyone who was against impeachment was against protecting the Constitution. I believe that the best way to protect (and repair) the Constitution is to elect Democrats in the next election. I don't see impeachment, particularly a failed attempt at impeachment, as getting us there. And the shot clock is running. You may see this as an easy call. I don't.
Enjoy your holiday. It's a bittersweet one this year. I wish I could be prouder of our country.
Start with Gonzales. Impeachment inquiry has procedural advantages. Concentrate on what Gonzales did for Bush/Rove/Cheney that warrants their impeachment as much as his (which is pretty much anything he's done becuase he's an instrument, not an actor). Take it from there. Maybe even then impeachment's not an option - or maybe not.
Several folks above have expressed dismay with "black and white" thinking. In normal times, black and white thinking may be crude and dangerous.
These are not normal times.
In our times, if we oppose black with gray we will get eaten alive.
This is an unfortunate and essential truth.
What we need is a larger majority in Congress and a Democratic president. I think we will get both in 2008. We must work to make it so.
Great. Let's hope it comes to pass!
But ...
If and when this comes true that's where the real work begins. When all of the normally apolitical types whose attentions have been aroused and awakened by the excesses of the Bush era go back to sleep happy that a Democrat is at the helm, that's when the real danger begins. That's when the insidious assault of progressive values carried out by DLC big-business types is carried out and we are truly distracted by right wing blowhards who attack our Dear Democratic Leader. We rally to his/her support and focus our energies on MovingOn as opposed to really paying attention to the fact that he/she is going to keep us in Iraq for anoother decade, the fact that he/she is going to offer us another Trojan Horse in the form of Health Care flim-flam. And we defend our Dear Leader when the Rethugs attack him/her about the decision to go to war with Iran. We tie ourselves up into rhetorical knots saying that it was a fait accompli after years of BushCo edging towards war with Teheran.
Democratic victory alone is not the panacea. At best it's a small step towards correcting the path toward fascism.
I guess we do see things very differently RAC. Congress did not condone warrentless wiretapping. Even the people that got "briefed" said they did not get anything out of it. Many, way more in the know than I, have said that FISA has been consistantly violated. There is so much out in the public record already that I have a hard time understanding how anyone can question if there are any impeachable offences. Numerous scholors and others have written exactly what the articles are.
Although this administrationh has tainted the idea of black or white issues, they do exist in my opinion. Child molestation is wrong. Thats pretty much black and white to me. Violations of the constitution. Wrong. Period. Investigate. Convict. This does not mean, nor do I mean to imply, that I dont think this should be debated. The final word of Digby's post set up this debate. At what point would you stand up for principle and the constitution over political calculation? Sending American citizens into prision with no charges indefinately? 10 years ago would anyone believe this would even be possile? And people are like, "Well that sucks. To late/messy/risky to impeach. Lets just make sure we elect democrates." Wars of agression baised on lies? It really mind blowing to me that we have come this far and people are sill on the fence. Getting Democrats elected will not address the constitutional issues. I don't want anyone to do what this administration has done. Democrates are better but they are politicians too. By the time people are ready to stand up the republic will aready be lost. See the rise of Hitler. If we don't stop these abuses now the bar just keeps getting raised. One more terrorist attack and then martial law and then we are done. This kind of thing has happened through out history and the greatest folly is to believe that it couldn't happen here.
idealism
seeing black vs white
balls
Nothing wrong with any of them. Those are part of our classic Great American Values. The question here isn't whether you prefer black to white, but would you accept gray as an alternative to black. While we need to make clear distinctions in our minds we are foolish to expect the world to wake up and accept our standard.
Half the country thinks that progressives and liberals are all wet. Are we going to make progress by ignoring them? Will we gain by picking fights with Democrats and hate their hypocritical candidates because they aren't pure enough, or will we ally with them so that they can gain enough power to hold off the fascists who could outspend but not outvote us?
Idealism didn't dominate when our country was founded. The majority of Americans were non-voting and many were worth 3/5 of other Americans, for example. Things have improved in that area because of idealistic people with balls, real or metaphorical. We do have a lot to celebrate! However, we currently have a regressive and oppressive federal government. The question is how to replace it with a relatively enlightened one that will last, then work to improve it.
"The question is how to replace it with a relatively enlightened one that will last, then work to improve it."
The point is, you don't start by ignoring violations of the constitution. You know, the bedrock of the very system you are tring to save. The whole point of this experiment we call the USA was that we have the rules, no one is above the rules, if you break the rules you don't get to play. Without that we are just playing games. Its like tring to fix a rigged voting system by saying, "Lets work hard to get more votes so we can win. Then we will fix it."
Reading through this thread, I am puzzled by three arguments made by the "anti-impeachment" faction:
1. "Acquittal by Republican Senators would amount to exoneration." I disagree. Acquittal by Republican Senators would amount to acquittal by Republican Senators. I think everyone would understand that clearly. Instead of blowback, this would provide a steady forward breeze in the 2008 elections.
2. "The President has the plenary power to pardon people." Sure. Libby walks. But Bush doesn't walk. Using the pardon in this way is obstruction of justice on the face of it. Addressing this very point, James Madison makes clear that it is grounds for impeachment. "If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner with any person, and there be grounds to believe that he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."
3. "There is no incontrovertible evidence that would support impeachment proceedings." This argument puzzles me the most. The criminal evidence is lying around in heaps and shoals. What do you call a public televised confession to breaking FISA? But it isn't even necessary. It is well established that impeachment proceedings do NOT have to rely on criminal infractions. These are political crimes against the nations that are being tried. Nor are the Senators bound to any specific standard of evidence. They are free to make up their own minds.
The incontrovertible public acts we have seen are already sufficient for impeachment. In addition to Libby's commutation (see above), James Madison gives us two other examples: Retaining Gonzales. "If an unworthy man be continued in office by an unworthy President, the House can at any time impeach the President." Firing the US Attorneys. "I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal."
.
The THREAT of impeachment is the only thing that could cause the administration to cooperate with Congressional oversight. At this point the administration is simply thumbing their noses at Congress saying, "what are you going to do about it? Impeach? Don't make me laugh."
When Democrats take impeachment off the table, they have essentially capitulated. Game over.
It is important to make Dems in Congress understand that they must appear willing to impeach if Bush/Cheyney go too far. Otherwise, no Republican president will ever again pay any attention to Congress.
If willingness to impeach leads to actual impeachment, well that's the way it is. You should never pull a gun unless you're willing to use it. But you carry a gun as a deterrent. You have to be willing to pull it. Democrats understand this with foreign policy. Why can't they understand this in domestic politics?
The Republicans play hardball. The Dems have to play the same game or go home losers.
By the time people are ready to stand up the republic will aready be lost. See the rise of Hitler. -- TruAmerican
Oh, please. You really want to play the Nazi card? The need to demonize opponents is a clear sign of intellectual bankruptcy, but it's perfectly consistent with the black & white mindset you espouse. It's this kind of hate-filled rhetoric that makes the bases of both parties look wingnutty. Bush could have crushed all opposition to the war in Iraq. All he would've had to do is have special ops "find" a thimble full of enriched uranium near Baghdad. There are your WMDs. The idea that Bush is a Hitler wannabe, who would cling to power at all costs, is crap. You should be embarrassed that you have to dig this deep in the manure pile for material, especially when the facts alone are sufficient to brand Bush the worst president in history.
Congress did not condone warrentless wiretapping. --TruAmerican
Bullshit. Congress bitched a little when news of the program hit the papers,(A clear violation of FISA, in my opinion. This would've been the time to impeach.) then proceeded to draft legislation that broadened statutory authorization of domestic spying. Essentially, Congress agreed with a need for greater electronic surveillance, but was pissed at the end run around the legislative and judiciary branches. After the last election, Bush placed the program under FISA court oversight. Congress is never going to impeach Bush for a program they support, and they are never going to impeach Bush for a policy that has a credible national security rationale.
At what point would you stand up for principle and the constitution over political calculation? -- TruAmerican
Empty rhetoric. Maybe you should go back and read the thread. The argument isn't whether to stand up for the Constitution, but how. You say the best way is impeachment. I advocate regime change through election. I think, at this point, impeachment is self defeating. I don't believe, for the myriad reasons cited above, that impeachment moves us toward the goal of regime change. If investigations bear fruit in some compelling way, I'll happily change my position. As Voting Present notes, in a thoughtful rebuttal above, impeachment is political. If it is removal of the president you ultimately seek, you are attempting to use a legal process to negate a democratic election. That is supposed to be hard. If you favor impeachment, what is the charge? Make your case. Be specific. What high crimes and misdemeanors do you have that will resonate with a majority of the American public, not just the far left? (Voting Public: Impeach Bush over keeping Gonzales? Or commuting Libby's sentence? A pretty weak hand. I've already addressed FISA.) Remember, a majority of Americans knew about the egregious policies of this man when they re-elected him. There's plenty of evidence that he's the worst president in history, but the answer to repairing the damage is to win the next election.
Thank you voting present! A-Men
RAC, I don't even know where to start with you.
First and foremost, I am not playing the Nazi card, I am saying look at history. There is something to be learned about their rise to power. I'm having trouble seeing how that demonizes you. Take it easy. You are putting an incredible amount of words in my mouth here. Talk about intelectual dishonesty. Bush is not hitler. He is a politician who is at the helm of administration hell bent on a power grab that needs to be restrained. History will tell you, if you will listen, that it happens slowly bit by bit. Tap your phones here, throw Padilla in jail there.
Please do tell me how supportting regularly scheduled elections and ignoring constitutional violations in anyway stands up for the constitution.
"As Voting Present notes, in a thoughtful rebuttal above, impeachment is political."
Did you read the part where he says evidence for impeachment is lying around in heaps and shoals? I'm not going to look up the millions of links out there to make my case for you. If you still need convincing we are at a dead end on this one.
You then say, "If investigations bear fruit in some compelling way, I'll happily change my position." WTF are we arguing about then? Your position is to have regularly sheduled elections, NOT to begin impeachment investigations. So what are you talking about? You have to START the investigations to get to the point where you might change your mind! But you are advocating not starting investigations!
My impression is that most here think that high crimes have been committed. The debate stemming from this thread is should we or should we not persue impeachment. My position:
YES. The constitution demands it. Do nothing and you might as well condone it. We have truth and rightness on our side. The people will follow. Contrary to what you have wrote, I enjoy this debate. I don't seek to demonize or stiffle. I am passonate about this. I think it is black and white. I believe it is the only way to go here, not that we should not debate it.
Why don't you go back and read the thread and the comments. And take a chill pill.
By the way, the main purpose to start investigations is to defend the constitution. All other considerations should be secondary IMHO. This is the primary goal. If bush is thrown out because of it (which I believe will happen)then great. Working hard to elect democrats should be done regardless. Your postiion: DO nothing and work for regime change which we would be doing anyway. Letting bush walk and having elections hoping to elect dems does NOTHIONG to defend the constitution. Advocating this is empty retoric.
Very, very late to this thread, but I want to throw in my 2 cents anyway.
"It could be useful, if only to tie the administration up in knots until they leave the scene."
Bingo!
Maybe if the Dems couch the question as "is there any basis to impeach" rather than "let's impeach" the public would be happier with it, but Iraq is the gorilla in the living room, and if lying us into war isn't a high crime, I don't know what is one. It's frigging treason, if you ask me.
And then there are checks and balances. Impeachment is THE check Congress has over the Executive Branch. Impeaching AND TRYING Clinton didn't seem to hurt the ReThuglicans, why do you think impeaching the Big Dick would hurt the Democrats?
Finally, impeachment is a much stronger tool than mere "oversight." The Big Dick might argue that Congress can't oversee the Executive, but he'd have a hard time saying Congress can't impeach him.
I have read more of this thread and I still remain convinced of the desperate need for Impeachment, whether conviction is achieved or not.
It has been noted that the opening of the gates of Buchenwald signalled the defeat of Nazism, not the taking of Hitler's bunker. However, it was necessary to achieve the total conquest-defeat of the Nazi society and people emblematized by the ability
to take Hitler's bunker which was the necessary precondition for having and therefor using the power to open the gates of Buchenwald.
The only way to have the power to defeat RepublicaNazism as an ideological cult is to first neutralize and contain all the RepublicaNazi troops in the field and neutralize or contain all the RepublicaNazi leaders and operatives dug into government or secure in their
'undisclosed locations.'
And that requires impeachment as a necessary first engagement. It would be like the invasion of North Africa. It might not succeed, but it has to be
tried.
R U Reddy: Amen Brother.
But you are advocating not starting investigations!-- TruAmerican
Read much? Apparently not. Here's me, just in this thread. I'm sure this isn't even every reference.
1) "The key to hurting Republican turnout in 2008 is hammering on Republican corruption: The billions missing in Iraq, crooked contracts, etc. Congressional investigations will yield far more fruit than impeachment ever could. Expose their hypocrisy in a way that matters to their base (as opposed to ours) and they will fall."
2) "Investigation and impeachment are not the same thing. ... I'm all for aggressive investigation and oversight, along with contempt of Congress charges if Bush stonewalls subpoenas, but at this point, impeachment is a pipe dream."
But really, your inability to enunciate what you would include in articles of impeachment says it all: "I'm not going to look up the millions of links out there to make my case for you. If you still need convincing we are at a dead end on this one."
Nice dodge. In other words, you've got nothing. I've attempted to discuss many of the specific Bush practices that might be impeachable. But when it comes down to the specifics of making a case, you've got nothing.
You've got me repeating myself, so I think I've taken up enough of Digby's bandwidth.
I leave you with Taylor Marsh:
"In order to get the conversation going on impeachment a case must be made. It simply has not so far and until that happens everything else is just wild-eyed liberals howling at the moon. ... I don't have the answer on this one, but we clearly have not made a constitutional case on the merits. Screaming about impeachment doesn't get it done either. Using the word over and over again won't. Only a methodical case will ... ."
I'm talking about investigations specifically with regard to impeachment. Not just continued investigations like we have been slowly seeing. Not my job to come up with articles either. I must convince our representives to write up the articles, investigate, and impeach if necessary. That is what I'm advocating.
No dodge. From the reading that I have done it is obvious to me and many others that the evidence is there. I'm not going to waste my time finding what you could very easily find for yourself. I could look up some evidence that the world is not flat if you asked me for proof but I would pass on that too. A simple search will find you plenty. I have nothing to prove to you. The point of this thread is to debate weather or not we should persue impeachment. I think we should baised on what I have seen. You do not.
The way to craft a methodical case for impeachment is for the judiciary committee to hold hearings on drawing up articles-of-impeachment, yes or no.
If the judiciary committee were to hold such hearings, and in the honest opinion of all the Conyers-minded members were to announce that the hearings determined that there was no genuine cause to draw up articles of impeachment upon which to vote to impeach, then it would stop there. But it has to get started in order to either stop or keep going, and judiciary is the logical place to begin the methodical hearings to determine whether or not there is cause to impeach. And till judiciary feels free to go ahead with those hearings, it won't begin. Does Pelosi
have some kind of legal power to keep Conyers from starting Articles of Impeachment hearings? Or is it only her extortive power of punishment as Speaker? If that's all it is, then she and Hoyer and the rest of the obstacles will have to be stomped on, trodden down , and crushed into the earth.
I am still trying to gather my thoughts on how a critical tipping-point mass of members of "the base" can torture the Democratic Party into taking that necessary first step.
RAC, I listed three possible articles of impeachment. Throw in FISA. You think they are weak. I think they are strong. TruAmerican is hardly dodging the issue when he says that we are at a dead end on this one.
We will just have to see what the great American consensus becomes as Mr. 26% sinks further in the polls. That is what finally sank Nixon, at last, at long last.
In the meanwhile we are just taking side bets. I remain optimistic about the prospect of both impeachment and conviction.
.
Impeach. The. Scum.
win lose or draw, it's the right thing to do.
RAC at 1:39 above says that the time to impeach on the FISA violations was when they were first revealed. I agree. Where we disagree is that their impeachability varies with respect to time. I think the FISA violations are still a legitimate impeachable offense. I guess RAC doesn't.
Nixon's approval number in '73 was 27%. That's not what cost him his job though, Voting Present. A major factor was that he was despised by his peers (other crooked politicians).
Impeach now. Start at the top.
Many people didn't believe Nixon would ever be convicted, and there weren't enough votes even in the House Judiciary Committee when it started.
There's far more evidence on Bush now than there was on Nixon then. For example, he's admitted himself that he ordered illegal wiretapping, and Comey confirmed it. Plus he's commuted the sentence of his crony who lied to protect him; Madison spelled that out as impeachable. Someone has already pointed out in these comments that Bush has done other things that Madison spelled out as impeachable, for which no further investigation is even needed. Plus withholding documents from Congressional subpoenas, which was in the Nixon charges. And on and on.
Impeachment can't be stopped by executive privilege. Or if W. is stupid enough to try that, that in itself is sufficient for conviction.
Any investigation of Bush will turn up plenty of evidence on Cheney and Gonzalez. For Gonzalez, Comey's testimony ought to be enough already.
These people have political commissars running every department and agency of the federal government, plants in every court, and are beating the drums for a war in Iran. Stopping them now is not just the right thing, it's the necessary thing.
What made Nixon's articles possible in the Judiciary Committee was Republicans turning. Bush's commutation of Libby's sentence *has* turned more than you might think.
Even if it hasn't, they will turn when Judiciary starts rolling on this.
Even if they don't, Bush will be tied down by this.
Even if he isn't, who wants to vote for a bunch of losers who won't even try to stop the ongoing destruction of their government?
Finally, remember that what caused Nixon to resign was Barry Goldwater leading a posse of Republicans to tell him he had to go. Sure, Bush might refuse. But you think *that* won't turn some Republican votes against him? When they realize their party is thus indelibly tarred with an outright dictator unanswerable even to them unless they get rid of him?
Impeach now!
Stop dithering. Just do it!
Great post!
Very late... and probably EPU'd, but...
one possibility might be impeachment by the public.
Preferably somewhere that already knows how to run a town meeting, like, say Vermont, where they are already on record as favoring impeachment.
I don't know how complicated it would be, but you do have friends (like Jane) who have friends who know how to write a script...
It could be posted on YouTube. In segments, if necessary.
The script could be made available on the internets for "free," so that other towns/states/boroughs could put on their own impeachments. Maybe even specify a specific day or week or weekend, for simultaneous productions.
From another discussion on another thread (at GG's blog), it seems that some kind of risk/loss is necessary, like a boycott or some other hurt. Maybe it could be a fund-raiser to benefit ads for Dodd's bill to re-establish the Constitution that Bush as so blithely trashed. But a coordinating boycott would be good, too...
It could become iconic, like another version of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town," except much darker.
In the end, doesn't impeachment come down to the people of this nation, as (nominally) represented in our federal legislature, deciding what standards of conduct we expect our highest federal public servants to meet and uphold? And when they don't, saying so, in no uncertain terms, whether we can predict the precise ramifications of what our standing up for, and on, such principles will bring? This President and this Vice President have fallen far, far below any minimum standards of conduct this country deserves from the leadership of its Executive Branch, in my opinion. To me, that is both the beginning and the ending analysis for a vote to impeach in the House. If we are afraid, or unwilling, to set and enforce such standards of conduct, we'll get the government we deserve (and I believe what we are witnessing today is a coming home to roost of just such chickens from earlier eras).
Impeachment is so much different, qualitatively, than proving guilt to a jury 'beyond a reasonable doubt' in a court of law, in accordance with a specific criminal statute, in order to deprive one individual of their liberty for a period of time. That rigid standard is the standard required of those public servants who uphold our laws for us, as Special Counsel Fitzgerald did for the few laws that applied to his grand jury investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson - one of our nation's spy assets whose cover was blown by high officials in her own government.
Impeachment for that same damaging event, would instead consider the fact that it has (self-evidently) happened (regardless of whether we can prove in detail exactly how it did in fact come about), and whether there is enough evidence to indicate that those in positions of trust in high government office who should have prevented Wilson's cover from being revealed, in fact chose not to, or recklessly let it happen, or even enabled it. Not to the level of "enough evidence" that is required in order to prosecute an individual in court under the IIPAct or the Espionage Act, or under the statutes for perjury or obstruction of justice, but simply in view of the plain fact that Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA career as a WMD spy in the defense of this nation was ended by her own government, and that we, the people don't condone, don't wish to condone, and will not condone in future such a grave and damaging betrayal of our nation's trust and the, at minimum, catastrophic failure to safeguard a "crown jewel" state secret by high and powerful Executive Branch officials.
We don't yet know the evidence in full. We probably don't yet know the evidence in half, because we have an AWOL 'free press.' We do have a stellar and thorough (and mostly-still-secret) investigation upon which to build, thanks to Special Counsel Fitzgerald and his team.
Congress ignores such evidence at its institutional peril. It has already effectively "dropped out" of the Constitutional scheme that was intended for it, especially under the years of Republican Party control, as Fred Barbash put it so well. "That Congress would refuse to fight seemed unimaginable" to our Founders, he also said, and "In a contest between two branches over separation of powers, silence speaks as powerfully as words" here:
Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp...ml?
nav=hcmodule
Yet so far, Democratic Party control or at least 'balance' of our Congress, has failed to re-enroll the Congress as a separate, independent branch of our government, to the great peril of our Republic. John Conyers, Dave Obey, Nancy Pelosi, and their leadership team hold immense power in their hands today, when even Justice Scalia is agog at the ongoing "lassitude" of Congress in vital matters of war and peace and the defense of our nation (2004's Hamdi v. Rumsfeld dissent). Why won't they, when will they ever, exercise that power???
We are all flailing for an answer to the ongoing crisis simply because Congress is supposed to wield our power for us, but they are refusing to use most of it at all, and our ability to effectively pressure our "representatives" has been almost severed by corporate and foreign-lobby pseudo-ownership of their seats as a result of the exhorbitant cost of campaigning via full-corporate-rate television advertisements. Furthermore, as Bruce Fein has pointed out, their failure to act to even open impeachment investigations is probably at least in part due to the fact that the standards that we, the people, would wish our public servants to uphold in the Executive Branch do not now apply to, and are not now shared as a goal by, those now ensconced in our Legislative Branch, Republican and Democrat alike. A 'What's wrong with that?,' 'We do the same thing,' 'It's just politics' type of attitude from decades-long incumbents in Congress as they watch our President and Vice President lying to the nation. The rot is very deep.
All I know is that sitting and waiting for a "Democratic" (in more than name?) President will not lessen the rot, and will not make the effort to right the wrongs of the long silence and "surrender" of our Legislative Branch of government - in the face of brazenly unConstitutional Executive Branch assertions of power that have in fact been exercised - one wit easier when the day of reckoning at long last arrives.
Excellent posts riskman and pow wow! Could not agree more.
pow wow:
You stated the case very well. We tha peeps need to exert our power in ways that move outside established channels.
Net fundraising is one such power, I think, but the establishment is coming to grips with it. Any real alternative candidate will not be allowed to play in the majors and third parties simply make establishment types cackle with glee.
Which is why I propose establishing the spoiler party, FLIP, which votes for one of the establishment candidates as a block- at random. Powerful enough to determine the outcome of any election, but without any agenda other than the reform of the system.
What would FLIPs' price be for not throwing elections? How about establishing instant runoff elections? How about honest redistricting? How about tough campaign finance laws? Got any other good ideas?
Government plays by rules that seek to remove us citizens as factors. We need to restore some leverage. We have the power, if we only choose to use it, rather than fritter it away on the games they choose to allow us to play.
So the question I ask is this --- is a failed impeachment going to hold them accountable?
It need not fail at all. The House should investigate, build a record for impeachment, and if sufficeint (if?), lay this record before the voting public prior to November 2008. Incumbent Republican candidates should have to, in light of this official record, defend their continued support of President and VP over the Constitution (which they are sworn to uphold). In this way the "politics" of impeachment is handed over to voters and not Democratic legislators, Republican incumbents are forced during the campaign to defend the indefensible, and trial in the Senate can take place during the period Jan 3, 2009 through Jan. 19, 2009 with the newly-elected, enhanced Democratic majority having received the public's approval to remove Bush and Cheney from office.
Let the people decide.
Go for it, Bob.
"Was the only purpose of this disqualification simply to preserve the Government from the danger to be apprehended from the single convicted criminal? Very far from it, sir. That in reality constituted but a very small part of the design. The great object, after all, was that his infamy might be rendered conspicuous, historic, eternal, in order to prevent the occurrence of like offenses in the future. The purpose was not simply to harass, to persecute, to wantonly degrade, or take vengeance upon a single individual; but it was that other officials through all time might profit by his punishment, might be warned by his political ostracism, by the ever-lasting stigma fixed upon his name by the most august tribunal on earth, to avoid the dangers upon which he wrecked, and withstand the temptations under which he fell; to teach them that if they should fall under like temptations they will fall, like Lucifer, never to rise again."
--Rep. J. Proctor Knott, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee,
on the impeachment of Sec. of War William Belknap, 2 March 1876
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dea...n/
20061215.html
I've considered suing them. They haven't lived up to their promises.
Sure, ideally, I'd like to see Bush and Cheney impeached. But that's simply never going to happen. Aside from the fact that we're so late in the game (2K8 campaign looming overhead), there's just the simple fact that the opposition would never take the fight on.
The Dems have managed to sell out and cave in to Bush through the whole decade. This is nothing new. Everything Bush wanted, the Dems handed over, sheepishly. We were always promised that "next time" they'd fight back, but that never happens. We're still hearing this nonsense now, with promises of stopping the Iraq war. And yet, the Dems, yet again, completely caved into a President with a 26% approval rating.
I have to wonder if Karl Rove has photos of every one of the Democrats (and some Republicans) in compromising situations. God only knows how many more politicians are hitting on your kids. Don't you just imagine Congress operating like that mansion orgy from Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut?
What's the deal with these losers? And what's the deal with Americans for putting up with it?
Impeachment? Yeah, sure. Waylon Smithers will turn on Monty Burns. That'll happen. I don't even think the next Democratic president would even end the war in Iraq - meaning, removing all troops (watch out for the phrase "combat troops"), closing down the bases, and demolishing that abominable "embassy."
Think Presiden Hillary would do such a thing? Think we're going to see the military budget cut down? Hah.
you've officially lost touch. impeachment is the only way for america to regain it's footing in the world -- we need to show the world that we still be believe in democracy and we still believe in the truth. the impeachment hearings will go a long way in exposing the bush government for the corrupt, un-american, torture-loving, lying-ass bunch of thugs that we know it is.
Even as a political calculation, impeachment is the right thing to do. Democrats desperately need to be seen as strong and as people who stand on principle – and there is no better principle to stand on than rule of law. The Democrats can campaign on the Republicans having abandoned to rule of law. To sieze a defense of the rule of law is smart politics.
But to hell with political calculation, impeachment is the right thing to do because we really need to stand for the rule of law - whether it is politically expedient or not. If the Democrats have power in the next Congress (and in this one) they will have to work hard to repair the damage done to our democracy by the Bush administration. Revision of the Patriot act requires that the political landscape be prepared by a strong stance in defense of the rule of law. A pledge by the next president to forswear the use of signing statements will be bolstered by an impeachment on the books - whether it succeeds in removing Bush and Cheney or not.
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