Let’s assume that Senator and presidential candidate Graham is correct, what high crime or misdemeanor will President Bush be charged with? What “standard” is Graham speaking of?
I’m reminded of all the military actions undertaken by the United States over the past few decades. Would Clinton’s cruise missile attack on Sudan have withstood this type of scrutiny, for example? I believe he claimed it was a nerve gas factory. This might have formed another article of impeachment. His bombing of Iraq might be criticized as well. There are many other examples of dubious intelligence forming the basis of ill-considered US actions. I only mention Clinton because he was the last Democrat in office.
Isn’t this another bad idea fueled by partisanship and little else?
Anywon who has seen Graham speak will realize the guy is more than a few fries short of a happy meal.
But, if Bush lied, then I would think it is an impeachable offense. I’m not talking about favoring certain intelligence over others, but outright lied for the major justification of the war. That will be almost impossible to prove, however. Perhaps a lawyer can weigh in on the whole “high crimes” deal and what that actually means, but knowingly misleading the country into war sure seems like it would fit the bill to me.
I think the whole Niger/Iraq issue is about on par with the Clinton deal of bombing the factory in Sudan. At worst, both are the effects of faulty intelligence, not likelly intentionaly malice.
However, I still believe that the country as a whole will give Bush a “pass” on the justification for war so long as the stuation in Iraq stablizes and improves. If we end up having some large catastrophy (a huge spike in US causualties or the situation degenerating into actual civil war), it won’t matter if God himself comes down to earth and declares all of Bush’s reasons for war to be true. It’ll be the end of Bush politically and a huge blow the entire GOP, too.
Here’s the problem as I see it, doesn’t a “crime” have to be an actual crime? I’m demurring for the time being. If the allegations are true, how would you phrase them in the form of an indictment, information, articles of impeachment? I’m not suggesting that it cannot be done. It is a necessary first step in the process however. Actually, I’d suggest hearings and putting some administration officials under oath. But, Graham is often “full speed ahead, damn…I have my little notebook here somewhere.”
Anyway, Graham may have not really thought this one through.
i think there are definitely grounds for investigation. a preliminary investigation would turn up enough evidence to decide if a trial would be necessary.
If you search GD I asked awhile ago if it turned out that Bush was lying would that qualify as an impeachable offense. Dopers responded that an impeachable offense is anything that congress says it is (one example being impeaching the president for wearing a tie that clashed with his suit).
That said I definitely think the President should be impeached if he lied to congress (and by extension the American people) about the reasons for why it was necessary to start a war. It doesn’t get much bigger than that and if congress thought it was sufficient to impeach Clinton about lying about a blowjob I don’t see how you can not expect lying about spending billions of dollars and putting American soldier’s lives at risk as not rising to the level of impeachment as well.
I do not think missile attacks on Sudan and such can be equated to going to war with another country with the express intent of deposing the government there and occupying that country. Maybe it’s just a matter of scale but the difference in scale is significant.
That said it looks like Director Tenet has fallen on his sword on behalf of the Bush administration claiming it was the CIA’s fault for not catching the error in the State of the Union address. I personally have a hard time believing it was a simple mistake. It’s not like they just confused two countries and said “Uruguay” when they meant “Paraguay” (yes…I know those are South American countries…just an example). They are talking about someone trying to acquire nuclear material for an atmoic weapon! It hardly gets any bigger than that and should fairly leap off the page of any speech. When Bush was asked pointedly if he was responsible for what he said in the State of the Union address he thoroughly side-stepped the issue and mouthed platitudes that the world is a better place without Saddam.
The administration’s tactic now seems to be to try and direct the attention to defeating Saddam as a “Good Thing” and Saddam was evil and the world is better off without Saddam. It seems to be working judging by opinion polls of the president. What sucks is it misses the point. It does not matter how good of a thing it was to oust Saddam. Even if you allow that it was the best move ever made it does not change the fact that the administration lied about its reasons for starting the war. Politicians often play fast and loose with the truth but surely a line needs to be drawn somewhere. It is hard to conceive of a bigger deal to a country than the decision to commit to war and if we allow our leaders to trump-up any charges to galvanize the public into agreeing with that war then we are in trouble.
The administration should absolutely be held to account.
“the guy is more than a few fries short of a happy meal.”
Huh? He may be a little eccentric but from what I have heard he is a capable and widely-respected Senator who happens to among the best informed on either side about national security matters.
Anyway I agree that it’s unlikely that any evidence of clear-cut lying will be found. The recent uranium flap is more an indication of very poor judgement rather than outright lying IMO. The Bushies had worked themselves into such an ideological frenzy about Saddam that they were scrounging for any evidence to bolster their case. When they heard the British claims they pounced even though their own agencies were skeptical and the Brits weren’t providing any evidence.
However though I don’t expect Bush to be impeached I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides or is persuaded not to run for re-election if things don’t improve on the Iraq front and economic front. His credibililty has been damaged and his poll numbers are sinking. If this trend continues for the next six months then he will be more of a liability than an asset in 2004.
No, the “crime” does not have to be an actual crime. Impeachment is unique in that the party prosecuting the crime, Congress, is also the party that determines the legality of the prosecution, and there is no appeal. So a “high crime and misdemeanor” can be any damn thing that Congress wants it to be.
But, in any event, it is possible that there was a crime here - conspiracy. Various government agencies have an obligation to report truthfully to Congress, and if Dubya directed that false reports by submitted to Congress, than he would be guilty of conspiracy.
The above is all speculative, but probably enough to start an investigation.
I supported the war, and still do. However, my support for the war was not dependent on the WMD issue - had it never been raised, I would still have supported the war.
But if Bush lied to get Congress/the public to support a war, he should go. (He should probably also go for the botched post-war situation, but that’s incompetence, not crime).
What Sua Sponte said put in other words: An impeachable offense is what ever the requisite majority of Representatives says is an impeachable offense and the requisite majority of the Senate will accept. It is a political process masquerading as a court proceeding. Regrettably, ever since the fall of President Nixon there has been a tendency to go for impeachment the way a drunken cowboy goes for his gun.
In fairness to the Administration, it is not accurate to say that the United States went to war based on lies. Rather, we can fairly say that the United States went to war on a debatable and questionable rational. While many my think that the arguments for war are weak, are based on ambiguous information, and assume the reliability of fundamentally unreliable information, the arguments for war, taken at face value, without critical analysis, and distorted to conform to a predetermined conclusion, it is enough, when countering argument are ignored, to rationally support the President’s conclusions. Try parsing that sentence!
Are you angling for a job as a speech writer for President Bush? He can use cryptic writers like you!
However, in my attempt to parse that tangled weave I’d have to disagree with the last portion regarding “rationally support the President’s conclusions.” Given the earlier parts you have made unfair assumptions, not been critical of evidence and even distorted evidence and ignored other opinions. Nothing rational about that whatsoever especially considering the gravity of the issue at hand.
This whole Niger/Iraq thing is just blown out of proportion, as if the whole decision to go to war was based on that one piece of info (or mis-info, if you like). Now, I never really bought the whole WMD thing myself, but to put Bush’s position in perspective, the case was about Bio, Chem, and Nukes constitituting WMDs. And the Niger info was only one piece, among other pieces, of info supporting the Nukes issue.
Well, at least we agree on the “not buying the whole WMD thing.” I don’t think anyone is claiming that the whole rationale for the war was the Niger uranium. That’s just the one piece of information that we know was a lie…err…was “misinformation.” We don’t have the same kind of concrete proof that the other claims–the tons of VX, the anthrax, etc.–were…“misinformation,” but the proven…unreliability of the Niger claim and the continuing lack of VX, anthrax, or any of the other banned weapons that were very specifically claimed to exist calls the whole edifice of lies…err…“evidence” into question. Nothing the Adminsitration said about Iraq’s weapons capabilities before the war has checked out.
John, the Niger uranium buy was clearly just one of several supposed facts trotted out to support and justify the Administration’s wish to invade Iraq. So far as I can tell none of the fact basis has panned out. The Niger uranium purchase is different because alone among all the reasons it was the one that not only was false but was known by many in the Administration to be false. If not known by the President to be false, should have been known by the President to be false. It was advocated for inclusion in the State of the Union Address by Administration officials despite its falsity. Itis now conceded by the Administration to have been based on false information, that is, to have been false. That to my mind is a big deal.
The present scramble within the Administration to fix blame somewhere outside the White House seems not only unseemly but dishonest. Many have pointed out that the cardinal rule of leadership is that while authority can be delegated responsibility cannot. It is more than disconcerting to see your President and mine claim to be insulated from responsibility for the accuracy and trustworthiness of his own public pronouncements.
Nitpick: Tenet has fallen on his sword by claiming that the CIA did find the bogus information in the State of the Union Address, but didn’t “push hard enough” to have it removed. In other words, someone else shouted louder than he did to let it stay in.
Which, when you think about it, is as stupid as blaming a bank robbery on the bank for not having a larger security presence to deter the thief…
First, of course I agree that the impeachment power was left in the hands of Congress. However, why couldn’t the Supreme Court hear an appeal from an impeached president, interlocutory in nature before the Senate trial, including the term “high crimes and misdemeanors,” among other things?* Marbury v. Madison wouldn’t apply? Under Article III, Section 2, I would argue that an impeachment is a case arising under the Constitution.
Conspiracy to do what? An agreement between two or more people, sure. Where’s the illegal intent?
I fall into one of those three categories, and not the “any damn thing” school. Perhaps one might argue for:
“Count One: violation of public trust”?
This is an interesting article, though admittedly not exactly on point (Courts review the congressional impeachment power re federal judges). Rehnquist views the term as “amorphous,” as you apparently do Sua.
Here the court at least has exercised judicial review over the congressional impeachment power. That is relevant, IMO. I’m not convinced that the Supreme Court has no ability to review an impeachment. Only they would know.
It baffles me that so many seem ready to ignore this issue because they felt that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was such a worthwhile goals in the first place it matters little what underlying reasons were presented for justification.
Regardless of your opinion on what constitutes good reasons for attacking Iraq the fact remains that the President and/or his staff lied to you. Not lied about whether he smoked pot while in college or is getting handjobs under his desk in the Oval Office but lying to you about sending your sons/daughters, husbands/wives, brothers/sisters to a foreign land to wage war and spend a LOT of the taxpayer money doing so. You absolutely should be very concerned about that.
If the President didn’t lie what are we left with? Government agencies lying to the President? Government agencies that didn’t lie but are thoroughly inept at their jobs? We’re talking about attempts to possess nuclear weapons here…not what Putin had for lunch today. Hardly anything else will attract the attention and close look from various American agencies than that will and we are no expected to simply buy that it was just a mistake?
The State of the Union address, which is poured over by lord knows how many people and gone through with a fine-toothed comb multiple times including readings by the President, was somehow allowed to have erroneous information left in it regarding attempts to procur uranium? This is not an off-the-cuff remark of the President shouting at cameras as he dashes for Airforce One…this is perhaps his most rehersed speech of the year.
So, the President is lying. Government agencies are lying to the President or we have extreme incompetence all around. One way or the other heads should roll. Either to encourage competence or to discourage people ‘taking one for the team’ in order to shield those who are responsible.
Beagle, the Constitution says the Senate shall have “sole power to try” impeachment cases. That doesn’t leave room for anyone else’s say-so to matter, does it? Never mind that the Supremes have never intervened in such a case before, although there have been a couple of dozen, so precedent is against it too even if impeachment is accepted as an essentially legal rather than political proceeding in the first place.