LIKE A SHARK cruising for a meal, talk of impeachment keeps breaking the national waters with its fin, only to submerge again.
Congress has been urged, at various times in the past months, to impeach Bush, to impeach Cheney and to impeach Bush and Cheney. With the president’s approval rating at 29 percent and the vice president’s even lower, it is not surprising that frustrated citizens and angry political opponents should occasionally be moved to call for Congress — only marginally more popular than the national executives — to throw the rascals out.
Bush and Cheney may be rascals. Both are certainly treading deep water, far from a safe shore. But impeachment? That is not likely. The shark that is stalking them is toothless.
For all the dissatisfaction with Bush and Cheney’s administration, incontrovertible evidence has yet to appear linking either of them to the sort of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors” the Constitution considers the threshold for impeachment and conviction.
Certainly, the White House’s Dynamic Duo have behaved badly. Both Bush and Cheney have lied to the people. Together and separately, they have made decisions and pursued policies that have deeply damaged the national interest. They have misused executive power to an alarming degree.
But none of those things is necessarily a crime.
Lying is not a crime unless it is done under oath before a court or other official body.
Making bad decisions is not a crime, even when those decisions have terrible consequences for other people. The law specifically protects politicians from liability for most of their actions.
Misusing executive power is not a crime unless the power is misused to commit a specific crime.
Richard Nixon did not resign the presidency because an increasing percentage of the nation thought he was a shifty-eyed crook. He resigned because the congressional committee investigating him finally uncovered hard evidence that the president of the United States had been a willing participant in a criminal conspiracy to conceal crimes committed by his aides and employees. Impeachment and conviction were a foregone conclusion.
Such evidence has yet to surface against Bush or Cheney.
Is Bush a bad president? Certainly. He confuses blind stubbornness with strength of character and assumes that his too-often-ill-informed words are expressing God’s wishes. That is a disastrous combination.
Cheney, on the other hand, behaves as though his own voice is actually the voice of God. He refuses to answer to anyone.
Those are not crimes. Character flaws and bad behavior, but not crimes. Both the flaws and the behavior were apparent to anyone who cared to look in 2000, when Bush and Cheney were first elected. They were even more apparent when the pair was re-elected in 2004.
Unless some evidence of a crime is uncovered, the nation is stuck with these leaders for the next 18 months and Congress can’t do a thing about it.
What can the rest of the nation do? Remember that politicians lie and make stupid mistakes. Remember that character and intelligence are necessary in the national leader.
And resolve to vote better next time.
thinkaloud (anonymous) says...
Sorry, but this article is cleary mistaken about crimes committed.
The fourth amendment of the US Constitution cleary states that search and seizures cannot take place with out a warrant backed up by "oath" or "affirmation" of what is to be searched and what probable cause has been committed.
George W Bush bragged that he violated the law over 30 times and was willing to do it again when he admitted he willfully ignored the FISA court. The FISA court is already reputed to be a 'rubberstamp' court, and considering he replaced the seat vacated by a judge with a conscience with Judge John Bates, we know Bush is aware of the FISA court and simply ignored it.
This is a crime.
Additionally, the handling of classified documents by Cheney have not yet be ruled innocent of criminal action because they have been obstructing any investigation into this handling.
The purpose of an impeachment is to hear the charges before the people.
I don't support impeachment for political purpose, and it is narrow minded to assume that anyone who calls for Impeachment is simply doing so because they don't like the policies of the president or vice president.
These administration officials lied us into a war. They had clear intelligence that there were no WMD. It was testified to in Dec 1999 by former Marine Scott Ritter. They had intelligence that they didn't like so they chose to keep up their game until we were into a war, then tried to excuse their lies over the next 5 years.
If you have any further issues, I'll gladly debate you on any point of this administration related to impeachment and crimes.
You have a false notion that Bush has absolute authority and thus because nobody has busted him yet on these crimes that he hasn't committed any.
You make up strawmen "character flaws and bad behavior" to avoid the real evidence that this WH has committed a series of crimes and will commit unless they are frog-marched to Gitmo.
Is this partisan? Not on my part, I'm just as interested in locking up several Senators and Representatives who supported their actions and or violated their oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign or Domestic.
July 23, 2007 at 11:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
wildshovel (anonymous) says...
A few weeks ago, Bill Moyers interviewed a liberal journalist and a
conservative constitutional scholar.
Surprisingly, both argued for impeachment, citing a dangerous threat to the Constitution and to American democracy itself.
Watch this. It's long, but well worth it.
part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2rqww...
part 2
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
part 3
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
part 4
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
part 5
http://video.google.com/videoplay?doc...
July 25, 2007 at 11:36 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )