(Untitled)

[zhai]

Still buried in deadlines, but surfacing momentarily to post this letter I sent via Kucinich's petition for impeachment, which recently gained extra attention when Nancy Pelosi indicated impeachment might NOT be off the table entirely. I've been staying out of the political debates because frankly the Obama-mania was a little unnerving, but he's

Comments

[anonymous]

Fair disclosure: I'm an independent moderate and former Republican. I've voted against Bush twice. He's been a terrible president and the living incarnation of the Peter Principle; his ascension drove me away from the party I was raised in, and of course, he's violated the Constitution.

But I don't believe that he should be impeached, though I'll grant you it would feel good.

First off, you couldn't just impeach Bush. If you impeached and convicted him, you'd end up with a President Cheney, which would pretty much be a one way ticket to an immediate war with Iran. Now, I believe Kucinich has also prepared articles of impeachment for Cheney. But that leads to a far worse outcome.

The succession goes from the President, through the Vice President, to the Speaker of the House. Currently, of course, that's Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat. So if Pelosi did allow Bush and Cheney to both be impeached, she would essentially be asking the Senate to make her President by legislative fiat, and overturn the will of the people in 2004 that a Republican control the White House. Even the Gingrich-led Congress in the 90s didn't go that far--if they'd succeeded in convicting Bill Clinton, all they would have done was make Al Gore president. (That's why their impeachment proceedings weren't just overreaching, they were stupid and overreaching.)

A few charges, like torture and the wiretaps, are impeachable offenses, but they'd be very hard to prove (the torture decisions generally happened at lower levels; most of Congress doesn't even have clearance to know the details of the FISA violations). But most of the charges aren't actually crimes. For example, Kucinich somehow makes Bush's opposition to the Kyoto protocol a charge! Incompetence during Katrina's not an impeachable offense either. Nor is being utterly self-deluded about WMD in Iraq, and about the chances of our troops being greeted with pretty flowers. All of these things make him a bad president. But unlike in a parliamentary democracy like Britain, being a bad president's not sufficient grounds for removal. For the Democrats to seek to remove Bush on mostly policy grounds would radically change the structure of our government; it would set a precedent that no president could remain in office when a strong enough opposition majority existed, and that would be a violation of the Constitution's checks and balances every bit as great as anything Bush's done.

So while I'll be very glad to see someone else take the oath of office in January, I don't want that day hurried along.

[araken]

(sigh) Didn't realize LJ had logged me out. The above rant is mine. :-)

[zhai]

That is an impressive amount of text for not being logged in. ;) I've been there.

Your point re Pelosi's position is interesting. However, I don't think it justifies or explains her blocking impeachment proceedings from happening. I think they have more to do with the democrats' overall strategy. No one has ever talked about handing the presidency to Cheney, which would indeed be worse, but he's probably easier to impeach than Bush is at the end of the day. Check out what Kucinich is saying, though -- I don't think anyone has seriously suggested impeaching over Katrina, Kyoto, etc. But he's done a solid handful of things that are squarely impeachable, namely lying to Congress and the American public to foment war (WMDs), and everything with the detainees.

What concerns me about this overall strategy is the politicization of the impeachment process. Stuff like this is EXACTLY what impeachment is for.

I actually think that the lateness of the date is what makes impeachment so feasible right now. It wouldn't screw up the country, because so little could be done in this amount of time -- Bush is practically a lame duck already, and anyone else before the election would be the same. I think Obama is probably worried about taking more flack than he already is (what the f$ck was the New Yorker thinking, by the way).

But I don't like how all of these politically strategic moves are preventing justice from being done. They may never be held accountable for these crimes as a result. Now is the time, if it's going to happen. And I think it should, for the sake of our world relations and the future; at this point it's symbolic, but that symbolism has more value than it ever has before. I'd like to see them held accountable for everything else all the way back to the 2000 election, but I'll settle for getting the impeachment brand on them before time runs out.

[araken]

An interesting way to phrase that: "the impeachment brand". Does it matter that there have been only two presidents impeached in American history, and that both of them were impeached primarily for political reasons rather than criminal ones? Nixon would have been a third, and he would have deserved it, but he resigned as a lesser disgrace.

The presidents who have actually violated the Constitution have never been impeached--Adams with the Alien and Sedition Acts, Buchanan's support for the Dred Scott decision, Wilson's wartime restrictions on speech, Roosevelt's internment of Japanese-Americans--they're remembered by history as stains on that president's legacy and the presidency, and that's the brand they receive. There's a valid argument that can be made that they should have been impeached, just as there's a valid argument to be made that Bush should be impeached. But that didn't happen, and the Republic eventually came to its senses each time even without it.

There's nothing Bush can do to prevent that brand from tainting his legacy, but if he's impeached, I think he'd just cry "Andrew Johnson!"

Oh, and it's completely tangential, but Katrina is Kucinich's 31st Article of Impeachment and global warming is his 32nd.

[zhai]

I am falling back under deadline stuff, but just quickly -- my mistake re Kucinich's later articles. He emphasizes the one that he is introducing currently (the other ones are older, right?), which is re-invigorating the whole impeachment issue, this time with Nancy Pelosi's cautious approval.

I think the previous war crimes not being impeachable is exactly what makes this an opportunity for us to overcome. We know that this was wrong RIGHT NOW, so it's an opportunity to take action while it's still a current issue, not after they're already out of office. It is closer to Nixon, and he still carries the brand for how unequivocally close to impeachment he came.

I doubt Bush is actually educated enough to know to cry "Andrew Johnson". =P