just cause for impeachment

Great Debates
21

Right. So “grounds for impeachment”? Tenuous, but they impeached Clinton on such. But as for “fighting an undeclared war”- nope, sorry. Congress gave clear approval.

Bricker- not to open up this can o’ worms again, but Clinton made statements that were “specious” in a Civil Trial. Grounds for Contempt, certainly, and his pee-pee was whacked by the Judge. For Perjury- no- the standard for such is too high to make it clear that he commited such. Despite what some keep saying- Clinton did NOT claim to the Grand Jury that he did not have sex with Monica. He admitted such.

If the War goes really, really badly- and Bush is caught in a few lies- and the Dems get a Majority, then maybe- but not for “fighting the war”, more likely for lying about stuff during & before the war.

22

Hell, if you can impeach Clinton for a blowjob, you can impeach Bush on any number of grounds:

  1. AWOL while on active duty
  2. Cokehead
  3. Crook (Halliburton)
  4. Electoral theft of 2000 election.

Turnabout is fair play, right 'Pubbies?

All we need is a Dem majoirty in the House and we’re rolling.

23

the reasons behind the lack of conviction in both impeachment trials (if i remember what my poli sci teacher from long ago said) were because of the senate realizing that it was more of a political issue that was being tried than any criminal behavior.

on a side note, i wasn’t born at the time, but how close was nixon to being impeached and how likely was it that he would have been convicted?

24

There is pretty general agreement that he would have been impeached and convicted, had he not resigned.

25

Can you give me any reason to believe this is anything more than ad hominem name calling?
A genuine psychological evaluations perhaps?

26

Well, the fact that Ramsey thinks that we had no right to kick the Taliban’s ass also is some indication that his elevator stops at the Mezzanine.

Even if somehow SCOTUS does rule that the resolution passed by Congress is not quite tantamount to a “declaration of war” (which is so very doubtful), the Prez did have every reasonable expectation to beleive it did. Congress as much said so.

However, the whole Haliburton thing would be enough to get at least a “Whitewater” level investigation if things were fair.

27

On the assumption that nobody means that Ramsay Clark is a piece of baked bread studded with dried pieces of various fruits, I’d very much like to see a bullet list of evidence, ideally but not necessarily with cites, that defines him in people’s minds as a “fruitcake.” I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you – but the last I knew of him, some years ago, he was quite a ways out on the left wing but quite sane in his advocacy of issues.

Evil Captor, no. If there is any standard from the three extant motions to impeach the sitting President, it would be that he must be impeached for misuse of his office or for committing a crime of moral turpitude while in the White House. And even if someone did discover such acts, I’d be opposed – the two motions that carried through to the Senate sitting as the Court for the Trial of Impeachments were both partisan attempts to remove an incumbent Democratic President for partisan advantage. I don’t want my party to be a party to such abuse of the constitutional forms. Let the Republicans make fools of themselves all they want.

And just for the record, it’s quite clear that the popular stance on Clinton’s impeachment was that he was not impeached for getting a blowjob, but for lying under oath on whether or not he’d gotten one. There are people who feel that such an act of perjury is sufficient grounds to impeach.

28

Polycarp- sigh. “lying under oath” does not nessesarily = “perjury”. The lie must be “material” and “knowing”. Clinton was NOT guilty of perjury. The House did “indict” him, but he wasn’t “convicted” by the Senate. Nor were there any criminal charges of Perjury, and you betcha Starr would have filed 'em if he thought there was a snowball’s chance in Hell he could have got a conviction.

29

Oh, so it IS baseless name-calling based upon political views. Thanks for clearing that up, DrDeth.

30

Here’s a relevant quote credited to the constitution:
“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

I think one of the arguments put forth (IANAL) is that treaties are valid as laws and violating agreements like the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter( by declaring an aggressive war) is a crime.

31

Not quite, errata. Sure, there is something to his idea that waging war is wrong. And, we hardly have any evidence that he, himself is a nutcake. In fact, he likely isn’t really- altho “extremist” could be fairly applied. Maybe even “radical”.

OTOH, his VIEWS are fruitcake city. What I meant by that is that there have been some arguments that the “War vs Iraq” is illegal. Not according to Congress, certainly, and SO FAR the Courts agree, but some other nations think so, and maybe the UN General Assembly will weigh in on this. So this viewpoint isn’t so nutty. Wrong, yes. Nutty, no. (Now I still claim we should not have invaded as it sets a bad precedent, etc, but that’s different from saying it was “impeachable”.)

But our actions against the Taliban? No major nation (not even France), nor the UN, nor anyone who was sane objected to this. Saying we had no right to counter attack bin Laden would be like claiming the US soldiers that shot down a few “Jap Zero’s” on Dec 7th, were “war criminals” as the USA hadn’t yet declared war.

32

Unfortunately, all those “grounds” relate to conduct that occurred before Mr. Bush took office.

33

If an independent council found proof that Bush knew that that report that Iraq bought uranium was a forgery, and used it to support his war anyway, could that ever result in impeachment grounds? I have no idea what if any laws might have been broken.

34

Now, make up your mind, did he say we didn’t have a right to attack Bin Laden or the Taliban.

If the prez had been willing to negotiate with the Taliban, we might have actually captured Bin Laden. As it is we killed a bunch of people who may or may not have been directly responsible.

Furthermore, the attackers were Saudi and the group is highly decentralized. I think Osama knew, but I doubt he planned it.

35

Yes, Clark’s list of charges include our “illegal” attack on Afganistan.

36

Why on earth would the President have negotiated with the Taliban??? One does not negotiate with terrorists and murderers.

**

Please do tell us who you think did plan it then.

37

Sure. Killing people is more important than actually accomplishing your objective.

Lack of a better suspect does not establish guilt. It’s well known this group works in small autonomous cells. The people who planned it, may very well have died in the act.

But I don’t want this to become too much of a hijack, just trying to demonstrate the partisan nature of the “fruitcake” claims.

If people want to paint him as far to the left, that’s accurate from an American perspective, and will carry the appropriate connotations that people associate with those views (nutty or no).

38

Bush is currently making war by power vested in him in a bill congress passed a year ( or so? ) ago. The language of the bill ran something like this:

**The President is empowered to enforce UN Resolution “Make Saddam Give Up His Weapons” by any means necessary, including force. **

There was more to it than that, obviously, but that’s the jist of it. Now, the question is, is this bill legal? The answer is NO IT’S @#$@#$ING NOT. But theres nothing we can do about it because the courts wussed out.

This bill was patently proven to be an unconstitutional grant of legislative power to the executive branch in * John Doe v. Bush *. The suit was brought by a whole bunch of servicemen (for standing) and some legal movers and shakers. Now, the Constitution explictly grants warmaking power to the Congress. What Congress did with this bill was tell the President that HE could decide when to go to war. Now, granted there were some conditions on when the Pres could do it, but they were phrased so loosely that they had no real meat to them. Congress ceded it’s power to declare war to the President for expediance- it would be hard to get around a filibuster in the Senate, and for accountability- “it isnt OUR fault we went to war, it’s the Pres!”

Federal courts had repeatedly held prior to this case that similar grants of limitless legislative power to the executive were unconstitutional. In several cases concerning executive agencies, courts have insisted that the legislature give strict guidelines to agencies in making rules. (though, suspiciously, the SC has really only come down on agencies that are making rules that might hurt big business. Hmmm.)

As one example of the real-world reasons breaking this part of the Constitution is a bad idea, consider this. When Congress gives the President a blank check to declare war when he wants, how can Congress stop him if the situation changes? This sort of scheme could be used to vest legislative ability in the excecutive before a party leaves power, allowing the minority party in the house to frustrate an attempt to repeal the act long enough for the President to take advantage of it.

The 2nd (maybe 3rd, I dont remember) Circuit took on this case. And the outcome? The court didnt want to debate the case; probably because the doctrine would make a decision against Bush inevitable. Essentially the court said it didn’t want to decide the case (there are fancy legal doctrines like ripeness employed, but a moment’s inspection shows they were farcical.). Perhaps wisely- what would happen to a poor District court judge that told the President he couldn’t go to war?. The merits of the case were never heard. The court rolled over in the wake of a popular president and let the Bush administration take a nice fat sissors to the Constitution.

So no, the President can’t be impeached, because Congress gave him the authority. And the courts wont stop Congress because they’re scared of being ignored or overruled by an overwhelmingly pro-Bush Supreme Court.

-C

39

Non-responsive answer. Do you think that the President should have negotiated with the Taliban? If so, why?

**

Fair enough, but you said you doubted OBL planned the attack. On what basis do you believe that? And, do you have a plausible alternate scenario?

40

Because I think we may have actually captured Bin Laden.
Your own “reasoning” was rather unresponsive an unsubtantive.

I just outlined my scenario, read again.