ElvisL1ves, are you suggesting that political reaoning and motivation is merely decorative?
How dare you defile the sacred democratic system like that!
Our congressmen and senators always act in strict accordance with highest standards of integrity and never put special interests before the good of the nation!
I find your suggestion offensive and perverse. Water is not wet and the sky is not blue and for you to suggest otherwise is both unpatriotic and anti-American!
lander, I didn’t mean the word “political” in only the crass sense, but to refer to greater statecraft issues as well. Just to illustrate, although the Jackson and Clinton impeachment efforts were, fairly clearly to most, simple vendettas dressed in fancy clothes, there were some fundamental issues with the Johnson and Nixon ones - keeping the Civil War won in one case, and systemic violations of the public trust in the other.
While the decisions by those involved that the nation was in such danger from their continued presence in office that they had a responsibility to end it without waiting for the next election were “political”, the term is hardly pejorative in that context.
It was telling that those pushing the Jackson and Clinton vendettas had to present their efforts under the guise of impeachment being just a special kind of criminal court for defendants who happen to hold federal office. A lot of people found the self-righteous vindication they wanted in that argument, though.
So does Bush’s lying about WMD’s constitute such a grave threat to the nation that he needs to be removed? By itself, I’d say no, but as a pattern of actions against the nation, including making war under false pretenses, the case could be made. But the argument that he’s doing what the bulk of the people want, even if the bulk of the people haven’t thought it out or explored the facts and reasoning behind it, seems to override that IMHO in a political calculation about the nation and our responsibility toward it.
Sorry Elvis, I didn’t make myself too clear it seems. I was in fact completely supporting what you posted with a parody about politcal motivations. I wasn’t making fun of what you stated. I have to careful when I post virulent parodies like that. They can be misunderstood. At the end you said:
“the Senate will “convict” him if they want to, and not if they don’t; and the stated reasons can be decorative.”
I agree completely that any reasons for or against will be decorative and that, furthermore, most reasons for practically any agenda in politics is decorative. The complete lack of integrity in the democratic process disgusts me. The only thing that disgusts me more is the widespread acceptance of such an institution.
Well…
Says the Constitution: “The President…shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
That impeachment is unreviewable is a myth (IMHO). The Constitution specifies the allowable grounds for impeachment (above). It would be POSSIBLE for a President (or even a supposedly removed ex-President) to go to the Supreme Court on the claim that the stated reasons for impeachment/removal (or even the investigation of executive activities with reference to the possibility of the commission of impeachable offenses) do not in fact fall under these specifications. Now you may think such a claim would be laughed out of court: but who, prior to December 2000, would have believed that SCOTUS would directly intervene in a state’s process of selecting its presidential electors?
Be that as it may, the term “misdemeanor” is pretty squishy-- it can be taken to mean nothing more than “conducting oneself in a bad way.” Practically speaking, the lawyers inhabitting both houses of Congress can find a way to justify impeaching and removing a President if the politics of the situation will allow them to do so.
And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Why not instill in Presidents a certain concern that the next Congressional midterm election might result in their removal? (I don’t myself support that quasi-parliamentary system; but it’s not NECESSARILY bad, and I can imagine situations in which the nation would support, and be grateful for, the ability to dump an utterly incompetent or “un-sane” --but not literally disfunctional or incapacitated-- Prez.)
But the Clinton instance shows that impeachment/removal for anything other than conduct that is BOTH (a) a clear felony, AND(b) wicked in the particular instance-- just won’t fly.
I’m not familiar with anything in the Federal Criminal Code that identifies “lying” as a cause of action–except lying under oath.
And as we now know, lying under oath–perjury–will be excused by the body politic if it is deemed to be in a good cause (ie, if you can see how you might have done it yourself, given the circumstances).
Malfeasance might be used as a basis for impeachment if it were shown that various Federal officials and appointees had been induced to perjure themselves before Congress (under oath). But you’d better have your ducks in a row AND an unpopular President. It might have worked with a Nixon…never with a Reagan or Clinton or GWB.
And, sorry, you only get blamed for going to war if you lose it. If Iraq had been an American disaster, something might have happened. But whoever it was a disaster for… it wasn’t for the USA.
There is a degree of precedent for “talking” the nation into a war on the basis of false or misleading pronouncements. See Roosevelt, Franklin; Johnson, Lyndon; Tonkin, Gulf of.
And let’s not be coy, folks. For the most part, our elected reps did not give W the OK on the basis of some impartial scientific judgment derived from data that proved to be false. It was more “Look, he’ll find some excuse for it if he really wants to do it–and we’ll probably win big and quick–then the voters will want to know who tried to stand in the way of America’s fun.”
None of this should be taken to signify a conclusion on my part as to the honesty of W, or the rightness of the Iraq war.
…yet.