You can stop right there and go read the Constitution. Impeachment is specifically *separated * from the legal system. It has nothing whatever to do with the legal system. In the “legal sense”, which again is *not * related his impeachment, Clinton was not charged with anything. That is simple fact. To mix the concepts, as you have, may simply reflect ignorance or laziness rather than dishonesty on your part, though.
bup, the “very narrow specific question” he answered (wrongly) *avoids * addressing the *real * issues I have just summarized.
Garfirld, just give it up. Elvis never debates honestly. Never once, in all the years that I’ve been here have I seen him do anything other than misquote, misconstrue and misrepresent any political discussion he participates in. William Jefferson Clinton commited perjury. William Jefferson Clinton was impeached for perjury. Those are the facts. Now, personally, I happen to think that he was goaded into doing so by an investigation running amuck far beyond the bounds of any reasonable interpetation of it’s purpose, but the fact is, Clinton perjured himself and got impeached for it. Don Quixotes like Elvis and rjung above will never, ever, ever simply admit that. They’ll take the Evil Captor route and scream “Blowjob!” over and over, or make nonsensical statements like the one you challenged Elvis on or hatch grand plots in their imaginations like rjung laid out 20 posts ago or so. I actually believe that it’s impossible for them to do anything else because their politics, their worldview, for all I know their very concept of self is so completely wrapped up in the idea that they are standing against a vast and powerful evil Republican machine bound and determined to use any method to destroy them and the pure, righteous good that that stand for as liberals. It’s bunk. It’s no different than trying to argue with rabbid fundies who just know they’re on the side of God against a Satan who is actively involved in human affairs trying to steal the souls of unbelievers. Facts don’t matter. Common sense doesn’t matter. All that matters is their grand crusade. Let them have it, as I said, it’s a waste of your time to bother them with inconvienent little things like facts. They know what’s what and if you don’t agree then you’re either an idiot or you’re in league with the imaginary evil right wing conspiracy they’re fighting.
Yes. This is analagous to Private Jones Jones court-martialed with penalty of a dishonorable discharge. The charge? Failure to obey the order of a superior officer. The specification to the charge? Pvt. Jones didn’t pick up a cigarette butt off the floor of the barracks when ordered to do so by Sgt. Smith.
Well, it would be analogous if impeachment were analogous to courts-martial, either. But, once again with feeling, it has nothing to do with any sort of legal process. It is *not * the officeholder’s version of indictment/trial/conviction the way a court-martial is the military version of it. It is entirely a tool, or sometimes a weapon, of politics, of statecraft.
Except that it would be *very * hard to keep it looking like simple, petty revenge, the DeLay GOP having poisoned the well for some time to come. But even at the street level of politics, there’s something to be said for keeping a weakened adversary around instead of having him replaced by someone with little/no baggage.
I think this attitude is the problem. In a democracy, the head of government can be removed by a vote of no confidence. There’s no reason that impeachment should be considered a “nuclear weapon.” That’s ridiculous.
For the record, I was at the time in favor of Clinton’s impeachment. If Congress & the country found him distractingly offensive enough to be obsessed with his peccadilloes, or morally bankrupt enough to be unworthy of the country’s trust, & enough of them felt it necessary to remove him, then they had the right to remove him for whatever reason they saw fit.
Being the head of government of the most powerful country in the world is not a right. It is a privilege, & it should be easily removable.
Now, if I thought it was justifiable to impeach WJC for being a smarmy, adulterous liar in his private life (or, for the sake of argument, if I were high-minded enough to want him gone for the technical crime of perjury in a civil case unrelated to his policy decisions), even though he did a competent job in the duties of his office; then how much more so I must consider Bush worthy of removal when he has defied the rule of law & declared himself to have absolute authority & immunity to checks by the federal courts, when Bush has ordered the kidnappings & detentions of people outside US jurisdiction, when his lies have led to hundreds of young Americans coming home without any arms or legs, & when innocent schlemiels captured on false intelligence have been tortured to death in detentions under his sole & dictatorial authority.
The argument about how the Democrats would be suicidal to impeach Bush is purely political calculus. But Clinton was, at least officially, impeached for his failure to conform to the strict rule of law. Bush should be held to the same standard.
Some of you will deny that Bush, Cheney, & Gonzales are criminals; let me explain why they are.
There’s an underlying point in all this about jurisdiction. The government of, say, Poland, does not have more right to harrass, attack, or detain persons outside its jurisdiction than those inside its jurisdiction. An Polish police agency can arrest an Polish citizen on suspicion of criminal activity, or anyone in Polish territory on suspicion of criminal activity. But it is unacceptable for the Polish government to kidnap & detain an American citizen in Canada on such suspicion without going through the proper channels, like Interpol. And if somehow the Polish government feels they must, then in that case they must be especially above-board.
But Bush has taken the opposite position–that he has more authority & flexibility against non-Americans than against Americans. He’s not the only person to think this; the idea is endemic in American politics; individual politicians in this country fear their constituencies more than foreign countries that cannot challenge us militarily. But such an attitude puts politics ahead of the rule of law. It makes our government criminal. We need a Congress that recognizes this, a Supreme Court that stands against this, & we need to shut down the renditions & secret detentions one way or another.
That may not require Bush’s removal, & Bush’s removal might not accomplish it. But impeachment, or at least censure, might help. That the GOP isn’t moving to censure friend Bush puts the lie to all the talk about rule of law 8 years ago.
Only in parliamentary democracies. In the U.S., we have a separation-of-powers system, and the Constitution does not provide for the president’s removal by a vote of no confidence.
It shouldn’t be necessary to explain, but apparently it is. In a parliamentary system, the people vote for parties, the head of government is chosen by and is responsible to the winning party directly rather than to the people, and elections can be held whenever the party du jour’s government fails a no-confidence vote (which must include some of its own members) or is dissolved by the head of state.
Here, the President is chosen directly by and is directly responsible to We the People. Parties have no official standing in the Constitution. The President is not required to have the confidence of Congress, nor vice versa, nor to the Supreme Court. There is no mechanism to have new elections in the case of a policy disagreement; everyone must wait until the next rigidly-scheduled date, and are forced to work things out or else do nothing in the meanwhile.
The Clinton impeachment was done *against * the popular will, without even the pretense that his continued presence in office presented such a grave threat to the Republic that it had to be terminated before the next election (which, once again, is the reason the process exists), and without any support whatsoever outside his opposition party. The choice of the President belongs to the people in our system, and the people knew about and decided to accept Clinton’s personal life, twice at that. The Gingrich/DeLay GOP’s effort to remove him anyway cannot therefore be described as anything other than an attempted subversion of democracy itself.
Does that help, foolsguinea? I do agree that Bush’s conduct in office, including but not limited to starting a war under false pretenses and habitual flouting of both the Constitution and the law, make his continued presence in office a greater threat to the Republic than removing him would be. And, much more to the point, that’s what We the People would demand, if you believe the polls showing a majority in favor of it if it were proven he’d lied us into war. Anti-Clinton sentiment never came close to a majority.
Bush didn’t lead the American people into any war they didn’t want to be in. The majority of both houses and the majority of the American people wanted to bomb Afghanistan, because 19 guys from Saudi Arabia killed three thousand Americans. When that little exercise in jingo chest thumping turned out to be emotionally unsatisfying, we went looking for some other towel heads to kick ass on. Obviously the Saudis themselves were out. Everyone was still pissed at the Iraqis because they didn’t rise up and successfully win the war for us last time, after we turned tail and sold everyone on our side out and ran away like politically motivated craven cowards. (Not to imply that we actually are politically motivated craven cowards, you understand. Only that our actions are identical to the actions one would expect from a politically motivated craven coward.)
So, we hunted around for a good excuse, and sure enough we had enough good excuses to satisfy even the House of Representatives of the United States, and the Senate of United States, and even the People of the United States that what we really needed to do to make the world safe for whatever it was that we were making the world safe for, was to invade Iraq, and give them another chance to win a war that we were never going to finish.
George Bush is not going to be impeached because he does give represent the true values of our country. Trying to pin it on him now is self serving crap. The most despicable part of it all is that George Bush did nothing other than to lead the People of the United States to do exactly what they wanted to do. And at some point in the future, when we have grown weary of our little war, we will turn it into their little war, and again execute our excellent imitation of politically motivated craven cowards. And if you don’t like this state of affairs, it can only be because you hate freedom.
Tris
“The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness . . . This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” ~ Plato ~
I could say, “*real *democracies,” for that matter.
Sooner or later, a sitting President will realize that the Federal Government entire, including the Treasury, serves at his pleasure, & simply fail to deliver salaries of those Congressmen who oppose him.
If they object, the “national security” apparatus will conveniently “disappear” enough of his opposition to deny them quorum.
If he is impeached, he will protest that he is the Chosen Consul of the People, approved by the Nation entire, & each of them is merely the representative of some small subset of that Nation.
And America will happily accede to dictatorship. Hail Caesar.
