Put Impeachment Back on the Table

3 Comments

1. 

   idredit on July 14, 2007 at 2:08 pm

   Seconded and highly recommended.

   We should all view, if you missed it, Bill Moyers Journal on Impeachment, (PBS) – a roundtable with conservative constitutional attorney Bruce Fein. Yea, that Bruce Fein and The Nation’s John Nichols.

   For Video clip, see Crooks and Liars.

   Here for Transcript: (H/T: Andrew Sullivan)

   Go take a read. Andrew Sullivan highlights a money graph:

   BILL MOYERS: Bruce you wrote that article of impeachment against Bill Clinton. Why did you think he should be impeached?

   BRUCE FEIN: I think he was setting a precedent that placed the president above the law. I did not believe that the initial perjury or misstatements– that came perhaps in a moment of embarrassment stemming from the Paula Jones lawsuit was justified impeachment if he apologized. Even his second perjury before the grand jury when Ken Starr’s staff was questioning him, as long as he expressed repentance, would not have set an example of saying every man, if you’re president, is entitled to be a law unto himself. I think Bush’s crimes are a little bit different. I think they’re a little bit more worrisome than Clinton’s. You don’t have to have–

   BILL MOYERS: More worrisome?

   BRUCE FEIN: More worrisome than Clinton’s– because he is seeking more institutionally to cripple checks and balances and the authority of Congress and the judiciary to superintend his assertions of power. He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don’t have any right to know what he’s doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He’s claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.

   BILL MOYERS: You’re talking about terrifying power but this is a terrifying time. People are afraid of those people abroad who want to kill us. Do you think, in any way, that justifies the claims that Bruce just said Bush has made?

   JOHN NICHOLS: I think that the war on terror, as defined by our president, is perpetual war. And I think that he has acted precisely as Madison feared. He has taken powers unto himself that were never intended to be in the executive. And, frankly, that when an executive uses them, in the way that this president has, you actually undermine the process of uniting the country and really focusing the country on the issues that need to be dealt with. Let’s be clear. If we had a president who was seeking to inspire us to take seriously the issues that are in play and to bring all the government together, he’d be consulting with Congress. He’d be working with Congress. And, frankly, Congress, through the system of checks and balances, would be preventing him from doing insane things like invading Iraq.

   BRUCE FEIN: In the past, presidents like Abe Lincoln, who confronted a far dire emergency in the Civil War than today, sought congressional ratification approval of his emergency measures. He didn’t seek to hide them from the people and from Congress and to prevent there to be accountability. And, of course, Congress did ratify what he had done. Secondly, sure, times can be terrifying. But that also should alert us to the fact that we can make mistakes. The executive can make mistakes.[.]

   Yo there Nancy and colleagues.  Were you watching?

2. 

   michaelmt on July 14, 2007 at 3:46 pm

   I have to admit, I was late to the decision that impeachment had to happen. I respected the logic of the old school House members who said: “We promised a 100 hour agenda. We must keep our promises without distraction.” I also bit on the argument that since there couldn’t be conviction that impeachment was a waste of time.

   Two things have happened to change that–and to firmly put me in the camp that impeachment must happen now.

   First the President and his republican sock puppets have virtually stopped all progress toward the progressive agenda. Yes, they got the minimum wage increased by attaching it to the Iraq Capitulation Funding Bill, but there are at least 16 threatened vetoes looming. My Paraplegic son isn’t getting anywhere with the promised stem cell bills. They can’t even pass bills to ensure that soldiers have rest before they return to Iraq, or to enact Homeland Security laws. What’s the use?

   Then there is “executive privilege.” The President has made it abundantly clear that impeachment is the only tool that could be used to actually find the evidence of what they have been doing in the last 6 years. Without impeachment, Ms. Pelosi, the next election is lost, because you will never know what has been done to rig it in advance!

   So we must see the impeachment hearings as ends in themselves, worthy and necessary. We must demand them this month, as our representatives have their “time home.”

   • 

     idredit on July 14, 2007 at 3:58 pm

     better late than never.  Recent AP Poll has the public giving Congress low marks…lower than for the president and Congress critters need not wonder why.