I’m not Polycarp, but ISTM that the option of simply not electing that candidate is still open.
Let’s put it this way: if I thought there was a 1/3 chance of it, I’d be out there in the streets, picketing the White House. By myself, if need be.
But the consequences are potentially great enough that a relatively small risk is enough to make me extremely worried.
Americans don’t really want a war with Iran, and no serious Dem candidate for President is going to give them one unless they can show the American people there’s really no better alternative. If I thought I could say the same thing about Bush or Cheney, this thread would not exist.
Of course I don’t. ‘Likely,’ in my work environment, means ‘more likely to happen than to not happen.’ I think that’s also the generally accepted meaning.
I also think there’s a very slim chance, at most, that an asteroid of the mass of the one that killed off the dinosaurs will hit the Earth during the remainder of my lifetime. But the consequences of being wrong are so great that I think we ought to be tracking near-earth asteroids closely, and be developing contingency plans for what we’d do if one was on a collision path with Earth. Failure to do so would be irresponsible.
Same here, only with the odds somewhat higher (but still well under 50%) and with the consequences considerably lower. Like I said, expected value.
It’s like buying insurance - you don’t really think that the events you’re insuring against are particularly likely, but you spend money to protect against those catastrophes anyway, because it would be a catastrophe if you weren’t insured.
With reference to “impeaching him for what he might do” – there are those in this thread who have said repeatedly that he has committed impeachable offenses, and that he should be impeached on them to prevent him from doing something worse in future.
Consider this: a man escapes from a prison/asylum for the criminally insane, steals a handgun, uses it to commit armed robbery of a firearms store, equips himself with an automatic weapon, and then proceeds to threaten to kill children in a nursery school (never mind why). He has committed no crime deserving of death yet. You are a sharpshooter he doesn’t realize has him in his targets. Do you shoot?
Not a perfect analogy, but it makes the point of acting on the basis of past misdeeds to prevent future worse ones.
OK, but then why is this thread about impeachment?
There are plenty of ways short of impeachment to make an invasion of Iran less likely. Posting on the Straight Dope about what a dumb idea the invasion of Iran would be is one. Another would be electing Democrats to congress who actually want to exercise their oversight role over the executive branch, rather than Republicans who think their role is to cheerlead whatever comes out of the executive branch. Another would be encouraging those Democrats and arguing with partisans who say that congressional oversight over the military is the moral equivalent of giving Osama bin Ladin a blowjob. Another would be making clear that public opinion does not support a war against Iran, that while the American people is fond of wars where we win decisively we aren’t as fond of wars that grind on and on. And so on.
And these things have the advantage of actually, in real life, affecting the odds that the President is going to wake up one day with a hangover and order some bombings in a fit of pique.
The reason Bush seemed able to do whatever he liked without consulting congress is that for the last couple of years we’ve had Republican majorities who were content to rubber-stamp anything and everything, even assert that the President didn’t even need their rubber-stamp. We’ve already had a few changes due to the change in majority party, notice who is Secretary of Defense nowadays.
Perhaps we should impeach Hilary and Edwards to pre-empt the chance that they might vote in favor of an attack on Iran. Seriously, I think we need to establish how far you want to take this.
Bit of a mischaracterization to call (for instance) the AUMF a Republican rubber stamp, given the number of Democrats who voted for it. Not to mention stuff like Social Security reform.
Somewhere in my brain is the “fact” that the President has the power to take any military action he sees fit – without the consent of Congress – for up to 90 days. Can someone confirm or deny?
The problem, as BrainGlutton has already mentioned, is that there is literally no way for Congress to stop the President from ordering the military to launch an attack against another country. And I don’t see how any of the things you’ve listed change the odds on Iran more than trivially.
Right, that’s the fundamental purpose of impeachment - not to punish a miscreant who happens to hold office, but to protect the nation against an officeholder whose *future * presence in office presents an intolerable danger to the nation, so severe that it cannot wait until the next popular election for the people to resolve directly but must instead depend upon their elected representatives. The evidence for that is usually that they’ve already done it. The consequences of violations of actual laws remains, explicitly in the Constitution, the province of the legal system. But it doesn’t take a violation of the law at all for an officeholder’s presence in office to present an intolerable danger to the nation.
The purpose of impeaching a corrupt judge is the danger to the nation that he will act corruptly in the future - the evidence of the degree of that danger is that he already has. The (ostensible) purpose of impeaching President Andrew Johnson was the intolerable danger to the nation that his *future * floutings of the Tenure of Office Act would have - the evidence of the degree of that danger was the number of times he’d done it already. The purpose of impeaching Nixon was the danger that his flouting of his own responsibilities would continue to present to the nation. The purpose of impeaching Clinton was … um, well, for *that * it was politically necessary to spread the lie that it’s just a special court trial for officeholders, just part of the legal system.
Onee purpose of impeaching and removing Bush and Cheney would indeed be to protect us against the intolerable danger to the nation that they’d lie us into another ruinous war of aggression in the future - the evidence of that is that they’ve done it before. There are a number other intolerable dangers their continued presence in office would present to the nation, the evidence for which is that they’ve done it before. It would be entirely reasonable to impeach and remove them for something they haven’t done yet - that’s what it’s for.
Could you provide a cite showing that impeachment is for the purpose you claim? Language from some past articles of impeachment, statements from the Founding Fathers that this was the intent, Supreme Court decisions mentioning it - that sort of thing.
Because all the impeachments I know about were in response to past misdeeds - not at all the sort of coup RTFirefly would like to attempt.
This may be a first, but I’m agreeing with Shodan on a political issue. Impeachment is intended as a means of removing an official from office for specific improper acts he has committed - what’s being discussed in this thread is the equivalent of Congress overruling an election. Some states have recall procedures to do this (and they generally leave the decision to the electorate not the legislature) but there is no such procedure for the Presidency.
I agree with you about how the Founders intended impeachment. But they didn’t intend standing armies, IIRC, and anyway, in 1789, they’d have had plenty of time to impeach a President who prepared an expeditionary force to attack another country against the will of Congress before it actually attacked anyone.
Could you cite an example where Bush attacked another country without the will of Congress?
Again, you seem to be arguing that Bush and Cheney need to be impeached in case they do something (that they have not yet done). How do you imagine the Founding Fathers felt about that sort of thing? I ask with particular interest in the whole “checks and balances” idea.
Then Congress should do something about that rather than impeach George Bush. Revoke the War Powers Act if they think it’s necessary. But going after Bush personally is just a partisan political attack.
And how does discussing impeachment change the odds on Iran more than trivially?
Bush can only be impeached if 1/3 of senate republicans are on board to create a 2/3 majority. That’s not going to happen over vauge worries that Bush will secretly start a war with Iran. It would only happen if Republicans are convinced that impeachment is the best way to save the country.
Admit it, this has nothing to do with Iran, you just want to fantasize about a Bush impeachment.
Seriously, yes, that’s what I’m seeing here. Some people are acting like the Republicans were acting ten years ago - the goal was to get rid of Clinton and things like the law were minor details that could be filled in later.
There are enough Bush supporters who are claiming that any opposition to him is just an irrational emotional bias - don’t feed them by giving them some degree of truth to their claims. There are plenty of objective rational reasons to oppose Bush and there are plenty of objective rational means available to control him and prevent him from hurting the country. Use those and let the other side have the monopoly on insanity.