Someone needs some sleep.
It was not immediately clear what would follow the failed cloture vote. When asked what comes next, Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., responded, “the apocalypse.”
Geez. I hope not. What did you think of the filibuster?
Someone needs some sleep.
It was not immediately clear what would follow the failed cloture vote. When asked what comes next, Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., responded, “the apocalypse.”
Geez. I hope not. What did you think of the filibuster?
good times, great oldies!
The aftermath has also been lots of fun, especially my conversations with Arlen Specter’s gang of liars.
Do you have them on speed-dial?
nope memorized: 202-224-4254.
The one I fuck up all the time is Reid’s number, which is similar to Tom Harkins.
Arlen Specter and his ilk annoy the living shit out of me, so I figure it’s MY job to annoy the shit out ofd them. And I call them. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
My favorite tactic is to call while I’m filling up my van, and ask why gas is $3.10 a gallon. “You guys promised that if we went to war, energy prices would come down. When do i get my cheap gas?”
They inevitably tell me it’s because of instability in Iraq, and I remind them that in 2003 before the invasion there was much less instability, and that gas was $1.57.
Another is “you ignored us when we said ‘no blood for oil.’ Well, we’ve given plenty of blood, 3500 soldiers worth or more: when do you come through on YOUR end of the deal?”
Oooh, they don’t like that. And they ESPECIALLY don’t like when you ask them how many soldiers died in Iraq, and why aren’t they keeping a running tally, given that they were responsible for sending them to begin with.
Yeah, I guess I’m kind of a dick.
I bet they have an office pool about you by now.
Nah. They’ll just drop him somewhere in the mid-Atlantic…
I’m willing to generalize here, and say that most of America never knew it happened. What little they learn about it, will be from the MSM, and therefore will get all their information wrong.
The Dems will just have to take the kewpie doll prizes this time around, but at least they’re moving in the right direction. They’re obviously feeling the heat, and reading the polls, so they’re starting to get it. Will it be in time…dunno?
I think GOP support for this war is in its last throes. [/cheney]
This bill had no more chance of passing now than it did two months ago. The Dems are still in the mode of trying to make it appear that they are trying to end the occupation while doing absolutely nothing that will actually make that happen. Their abysmal poll ratings have got them worried, but this just made them put more effort into trying to fool their base.
There are two and only two mechanisms that the Dems and Congress can use with full effect to end the occupation: impeachment and cutting off funds. But Dems are evidently no more willing to do either than they were in May.
People are increasingly mystified as to why impeachment continues to be off the table. A simple explanation occurred to me recently: impeaching Bush and Cheney would make it harder to run the US as an empire. It is very likely that if impeachment is undertaken, one of the grounds for impeachment will be that Bush and Cheney lied us into war. But the only way for democracies to launch wars of aggression is to lie their country into war. In addition, the ability to launch wars of aggression is essential to running an empire.
If Bush and Cheney were impeached for lying the country into war, that would make it harder and more risky for future presidents to lie the country into war, and hence more difficult for them to run the Empire. That is why the Dem leadership will only undertake impeachment if they are dragged kicking and screaming. It is that simple.
it’s tactics.
I’ve been highly critical of the democrats since they regained majority, but not on this issue. It forces the republicans onto the record about supporting the Iraq war, and gives the lie to Republican weasel words. Last night will make for some WONDERFUL ads in 2008.
I’m not a big fan of Harry Reid, but this time he did the right thing.
As for impeachment, that starts in the House anyway, so you can hardly blame Reid and the Senate for not pursuing that route, as it’s off-limits to them.
Better tactics would be to put impeachment back on the table: not impeaching necessarily, just consistently and repeatedly saying that impeachment is one possible way of resolving the current stalemate over what to do about our occupation of Iraq.
Forcing the Rethugs to filibuster just repeated, with greater fanfare, what was already done in May, to no effect.
And yes, I do put (partial) blame on Reid for obstructing the initiation of impeachment. What is to stop him from publicly saying that he can’t figure out why Pelosi is not seriously considering impeachment? (He should only do that after privately warning her that he will unless she changes her tune, of course.)
what the democrats seem to be doing (and I could be wrong) is going out of their way to make impeachment a last resort. I had an interesting conversation on this topic just the other day. Impeachment, in my friend’s opinion, HAD to be taken off the table so when it’s eventually put back ON the table it can be framed as “we tried to be reasonable”.
One thing the GOP was successful at in the 1990s impeachment was clearly stigmatizing it as partisan. Everyone knows that Clinton was a witch hunt, and the GOP would like nothign better than to say (with their media pals) “this is just partisanship by the Democrats”. furthermore, we need the GOP to go along with this to get it to the senate and to get a conviction: as our host Marty points out, they won’t do it over the NSA spying, the torture, or habeas. The only thing that awoke the GOP form its torpor was when the WH tried to usurp their power to confirm AGs.
It’s moving slowly right now, but all this ignoring subpoenas is going to be how they impeach these guys, when it’s clear to even the GOP that this administration has no use for congress and they’re facing the spectacle of a democratic president who is going to employ that same precedent.
Patience. I know it’s hard, and I know it’s even harder to believe coming from me, a noted hothead and screamer, but I think we’ll get our impeachment in the end.
i call em up constantly and tell them to put impeachment back on the table: and you should too. The pressure needs to be kept on the democrats, but it’s also a chess game.
I agree with everything you say, except the vitriol against the Dems. I can’t bring myself to despise that much.
I’ve been a lifelong Democrat, know, and worked for a lot of them, including some biggies. Some I liked more than others, no doubt, but it is always the Democratic Party that tries to make the world better…maybe not as much as we need, or want, but until there is a viable alternative, they are the Team to work with.
I don’t despise the Dems. It’s a structural thing. The US is an empire, and in an empire, all major parties aim to preserve the empire, even if that goes against the people’s own wishes.
You, like Booman I think, are thinking about this in terms of what is happening inside Democrats’ hearts. I think that a better way to think about it is in terms of how the system works. Individuals might care about things like justice and democracy, but the system doesn’t. The only thing it cares about is preserving itself.
It is a lot more complicated than that.
First of all, as a lawyer can tell you, you don’t want to bring a case all the way up to the supreme court and lose because then you have just set a precedent against your own interpretation of the law. Congress is dead set against impeaching without any prayer of convincing a supermajority of the Senate. That would say that torture is not an impeachable offense, snooping on people illegally is not an impeachable offense.
So, if they are going to impeach they first have to build a case that Republicans will have to support. And that is what all these subpoenas are about. By refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas, the Bush administration is setting a precedent that Republicans will not like when they have a President Obama or Edwards or Richardson.
Secondly, the Dems may individually want to throw Bush and Cheney in the Hague, but they are looking at their full coffers and the Republican’s empty ones, they are looking at candidate recruitment, and they are looking at the polls. While people are angry at Congress, they are throwing their love to Democrats at an unprecedented rate. The DSCC has 10 times the money of the RNSC, Dems are polling at parity with the GOP in voter self-identification in Alabama. The Dems have a 18-point generic advantage over the GOP. We haven’t seen numbers like this since 1974. They feel like the wind is at their back and they are poised to sweep into power in ’08, taking the White House, possibly 60+ Senate seats, and probably another 10-20 congressional seats.
Starting a hopeless impeachment fight is a risky thing and could through a monkey wrench into the works.
So, they will keep pushing, and something is going to happen over these subpoenas soon. If they get things set up right and the Republicans agree that Bush must go, then the Dems will move. But they aren’t going to push impeachment before the time is right.
We have differed over the Dem leadership’s true intentions for some time; you have long argued that it is shrewdly and painstakingly working up to what we want now; I have the leftist’s suspicion that it is playing us. There is no point to arguing about this at length, since the matter will be settled by January 2009. At this point, no one outside of the inner circles of power can divine our leaders’ true intentions and goals; we can only speculate.
Still, I cannot help thinking that you are a bit too idealistic when you say that “the Dems may individually want to throw Bush and Cheney in the Hague”. That would completely go against how empires work. The people may want nothing more than seeing Bush and Cheney in the Hague; but elites? Trying Bush and Cheney for war crimes would effectively finish off the US as an empire, and the Dems want that no more than the Rethugs. The empire would still have its bases, but the precedent against using them aggressively would be set, so there would be no more point in keeping them.
As for the idea that Dems need to slowly build a case for impeachment: I don’t see that. All that is required is for Democrats to consistently and repeatedly speak the truth about what has been going on in Washington during the past six years, so that the public becomes as aware of this as the inhabitants of the (progressive) blogosphere. If Democrats initiated impeachment in the House and did not restrain themselves from fully exposing the crimes of the Bushies, Senate Republicans’ voting to acquit in the trial would cause a profound political crisis, completely delegitimizing our government, simply because it contains Republicans. Thus, it would be very hard for them to acquit, once impeachment proceedings had taken place.
The impeachment proceedings themselves would change the political reality for the Rethugs. And there is more than enough in the public domain already to fully justify initiating impeachment proceedings tomorrow, especially given that a majority of Americans want Cheney impeached and half of all Americans want Bush impeached. Rethugs simply do not have to be on board at this point.
Thus, I cannot help believing that in addition to the earlier reason I gave for why impeachment is off the table (it would make it more difficult to launch wars of aggression in the future), the second reason is that impeachment would finally reveal to all Americans and to the world, beyond any possibility of denial, just how rotten Washington really is. And, because of their complicity in enabling Bush, the Democrats do not want that.
But, as I said, we shall see.
I dunno.
Elites decided to throw Clinton out for (essentially) infidelity. Didn’t work out too well for them, but it shows how clueless they are.
What would you impeach Bush for?
Torture? Have some glazed chicken and rice pilaf.
Abu Ghraib? A little roughhousing.
The NSA? What…you on the side of the terrorists?
Signing statements? Zzzzz.
The Republicans DO NOT CARE about any of it.
They will not call that stuff illegal…ever.
So, we HAD to go down the subpoena route.
And I don’t think our empire is at risk if we impeach them for serial contempt of Congress.
You are quite right, it is only if they are impeached for lying the country into war that the empire would be undermined. So we could both turn out to be correct, if Bush/Cheney were impeached, but not for that reason. My thinking was that Dems are afraid to impeach, because it might be difficult not to include that as one of the articles of impeachment.
But I stand corrected, as regards my speculation that public pressure might induce Republicans to vote to convict on the grounds you list.
I understand your thinking better now. You think it’s possible that public pressure might induce the Dems to finally start impeaching Bush, but they will only do so if they think they can get him convicted in the Senate. The latter is not an unreasonable requirement, one the Rethugs should have considered before they impeached Clinton. (But of course that was all about undermining his presidency; actually convicting him would have been counterproductive for them, since it would have made Gore a shoe-in as the next president.)
None of this means that if they impeach Bush, there shouldn’t be an article about lying the country into war as well as serial contempt of Congress. So what if the Rethugs only vote to convict on the latter but not the former? Only conviction on one article is necessary.
Anyway, my hypothesis will be vindicated if the Dems do finally impeach, but there is no article about lying the country into war. Even if Bush is not convicted on those grounds but is convicted on others, the imperial presidency will still have been dealt a major setback. That is why I predict that Dems will not include an article about the lying into war, if they do impeach.
Here is how I see the issue.
There is plenty of stuff on the public record that could form grounds for impeachment, but none of it would induce Republicans to vote for conviction.
So…
The Democrats said they had no intention of impeaching the president.
But…
They suspected that many of the public statements of the administration were lies and they believed that exposing the truth would lead to public outrage so strong that Republicans would be forced to accede to removal from office.
Thus…
They subpoenaed documents and testimony that they felt would lead to such an outcome.
And…
The administration is acting precisely as we would suspect them to act if their actions cannot stand public scrutiny. They are defying subpoenas.
So…
We have them where we want them. The goal now is to find a way to peel Republicans off that will not support an evisceration of the powers of Congress to do oversight of the executive.
And even this will be difficult. In the short-term the goal is to compel the documents and testimony. And if we don’t get it, then we start down the road to impeachment.
It really has nothing to do with what Bush and Cheney have done in the past. It is what they are doing right now.
Interesting analysis. I suppose you are right: the Dems have made their determination not to do anything about BushCo’s past crimes pretty clear by now. And getting Repubs on board by making the issue evisceration of Congressional powers is pretty shrewd. And this is consistent with the notion that Dems’ almost exclusive aim is electoral self-interest: they are getting worried that there is so much public demand for action against Bush that if they do nothing, it will hurt them.
I guess the main fork in the road up ahead where they could disappoint us anew would be if they allow Bush to drag the fight over the subpoenas out in the courts. Compelling testimony and evidence but then not going on to impeach if they don’t get it would be the way they “cave in” here. You are reading in a strategy, but we did the same with the war supplemental bill, and we turned out to be wrong.
Aside from impeachment, there is also the option of using “inherent contempt” against Meirs, discussed on Countdown yesterday. That might be a stepping stone between inquiries and impeachment. Do you think there’s any chance at all they would take that route? It would make a fine spectacle: much more thrilling theater than this late-night Senate debate!
I wrote about that on the 14th.
I read that piece (but not Dean’s that you quote from), but not thoughtfully enough, evidently. Thanks for repeating yourself for my benefit.
Anyway, Marty Lederman finds it “unlikely . . . but not inconceivable” that Congress would go ahead with the inherent contempt option. Given that Dems have time and again proven unwilling to seriously challenge Bush without having the Rethugs on board, and that the Rethugs are backing up Bush on the subpoenas, I think that he is correct that this will probably not happen.
Your suggestion is that the Republican establishment (Daddy’s friends) will come around and get rid of Shrub. But I don’t think they are that influential with Congressional Rethugs any more.
I don’t think lying us into a war would be the proper reason to start impeachment proceedings. For that, they should just be hung.
The reason for impeachment is for subverting the constitution. Signing statements, illegal wiretapping (ignoring the law)and claiming executive priviledge for reasons other than national security all have made a mockery of our system of checks and balances built into the constitution.
Let’s say, You’re right. The Empire exists.
Historically Empires fall from their own weight, even within the Modern Times;Great Britain,USSR.
Let’s also say that both the D’s and R’s just mollify, and perpetuate this Corporate Nationalistic Empire (and by association that would have to include the American Voter in this affront to the Republic).
You could take it further, and include the Trilateral Commission in this. But let’s not for now.
There are many people who would even go so far as to say this Republic was founded by Capitalistic Slaveholders…oh wait, that’s true!
Apart from working to elect Representatives who share your perspectives, how would you propose to rectify this.
Do you believe, as Jefferson did, that the People should rise up. Or do you see practical alternatives, that you can vociferate? And by practical, I mean, that outside of a small circle of friends, can you convince enough people to agree with you and your methods?
After all this is a Democracy, based at this moment on a Two Party System. If you feel this is inadequate to the necessities of the times, what are your proposals. I look forward to your Diary.
Sorry…I’m out of synch with the thread. This is a reply to Alexander
I am not prepared to post a diary on this subject at the moment. The only suggestion I have to make right now is the point periodically made at sites like Counterpunch—that the anti-war movement should try to expand the debate to include the issue of empire.
Given that both parties are presently for empire, it does not follow that both of them must be rejected by someone who is against empire.
It is the neocons, not the left, that have brought the issue of empire into American discussion of American foreign policy. The only suggestion I am able to make right now is that now that the neocons have made empire a legitimate issue in American political discourse, we on the left should not shirk from raising it when it is relevant.
This is also expedient for partisan Democratic purposes. The “War on Terror” is clearly a Republican brand. The new British P.M. Gordon Brown has abandoned it. Most Americans are against empire. And it is hard to make a cogent case against the “War on Terror” without noting that it is nothing but a cover for empire. Thus, the immediate thing to do is to try to bring criticism of empire from where it is now, on the fringes, into mainstream Democratic discourse.
When she was on hardball yesterday, Cindy Sheehan brought up the military-industrial complex, which one can think of as an euphemism for the American empire. That’s good too. The point is that the time for the marginalization of realistic discussion of American foreign policy by progressives is over.