What are you on about? I provided a cite for it being in limbo. The first cite actually.
No. Unless they’re pardoned, as those of us of a certain age may recall.
I’m not so much thinking that Bush himself has committed crimes, though it’s possible. I’m more thinking that there has been an astonishing dearth of Cabinet level/senior advisor level convictions in this administration, which given the games with federal prosecutors and all that, makes me prick up my ears and go “Hmm?”
It could be, of course, that all the members of the Bush administration (except for Libby) are as pure as the driven snow. I hope you’ll excuse my skepticism.
Yeah, I’m of that age too. Well, I was around 14 anyway.
Certainly…in fact FWIW I think your skepticism is well founded.
-XT
I was 16. Matter of fact - warning! anecdote! - I got stung by a bee on the back of my neck while standing in line for a White House tour the day Nixon announced his resignation. (There was some comment in the line, “I wonder why Dan Rather is running to the pay phone?”)
Well, I don’t actually recall what I was doing (probably robbing a store or something like that)…but I certainly remember all the furor about it. And I remember the outrage when Ford pardoned him as well…gods, what a lash up that was.
I seriously doubt that President Obama is going to feel particularly inclined to pardon Bush or any of his merry men if they have the goods on them though.
-XT
He very well might, once all the facts are known. That is the purpose of the exercise, ultimately, is that the truth be known. Truth, not justice. There is no chance of justice for someone responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. How many times can you string him up?
There are two obvious interpretations for the move to committee, which may, or may not, be a ticket to limbo. It is entirely sensible for such a procedure to go to the Judiciary Committee where it may be a) buried or b) investigated. (Memory does not serve, early onset Budwieser’s but…didn’t the Clinton fiasco go to committee?..)
Or, investigated for sufficient time to determine whether or not political capital can be gained by further pursuit of the issue. If we are so severely determined that GW not be falsely impeached, why, what better way than such an investigation, with subpoena powers, and all that good stuff. We may even find evidence sufficient for XT’s excruciatingly exact requirements, if GeeDub has, in fact, written a sworn confession in his own blood.
Appears to me that there is a considerable jump to conclusion in assuming that the purpose of going to the Jud Comm is inherently a move to bury. It may be getting it out of the Pubbie’s gunsights, thereby keeping the options open.
And why did Dennis bring it up? Well, IIRC, he promised to. So, he did. Some guys are like that.
So, you think GW will fire John Dean?
Oh, and Frank? XT? You punks get off my LAN.
Hey, I was there, man. Vice-President Ford warned us about the brown acid, as was the fashion at the time.
Who do you think sold him the brown acid? Actually, they were M&M’s, but he came back for more…
First off, they voted to send it to the Judiciary Committee, not to shelve it. If it had gone to an immediate debate it’s quite likely that the Republicans would have been sidetracking and obfuscating as fast as a horse can trot–see this thread for numerous examples of the kind of “debate” that might have ensued. The Judiciary Committee is now in a nice spot to hold hearings and investigate the charges further without Republican “debate” muddying the waters. Kucinich has vowed to keep bugging Judiciary to make sure that investigation continues.
To put it another way–if you were handed a death penalty level prosecution case and were told the defense was all ready to proceed immediately to trial the next morning, would you consider yourself somehow derelict in your duty if you refused to proceed immediately and instead insisted on familiarizing yourself with the case, getting all your ducks in a row and making sure you had a nice, airtight case for prosecution? Or would you instead maintain that your clear duty as a prosecutor is to make sure you can make your case–even if you KNEW for a fact the accused was guilty, you’d still want to make sure YOUR CASE was good, so’s not to screw up and thereby allow the guilty to go free due to your screwing up from not being familiar with the case?
Perhaps, what with not being a lawyer and all, I’m totally mistaken in this–care to educate me on whether or not my scenario is full of shit?
So Kucinich moved for impeachment before he had any evidence? Gosh, how surprising.
Yes, your scenario/analogy is full of shit. The accused has the right to a speedy trial, so the prosecution doesn’t get to stall until they are ready.
That doesn’t apply in this case, because an impeachment is not a criminal proceeding.
But again, if Kucinich was so sure of his case, why does he vote to stall? If he wasn’t sure of his case, why did he try to impeach before he had any of his ducks in a row?
Could it possibly be (gasp!) a piece of meaningless political grandstanding from a liberal troll?
Regards,
Shodan
Sure, could be! But just imagine when a Pubbie Congresscritter who voted in favor of impeaching Wild Bill for “lying to the American people” gets asked why he doesn’t vote for impeaching Bush. The potential for comedy gold is vast.
Your scenario is full of shit.
Your first clue should have been the utter confidence with which all major news outlets are reporting this move as “shelving” the resolution. Sure, it’s possible for them to make it back to the floor and get voted upon, but that fact of the matter is that the Democratic leadership has already signaled they won’t be doing that. Nor is this a sneaky Republican trick; the Dems control the committee and are perfectly capable of sending the articles to the floor again without any Republican involvement or support. And on the House floor, majority rules, which means again that the Dems can pass this without a single Republican vote.
But they won’t – they don’t plan to, they’ve informally signalled that to the media, and that’s that.
If you’re seriously reading this and thinking, “Great! The process continues!” then you’re entirely off base.
Who ever voted to impeach anyone for “lying to the American people?”
Lying under oath, a criminal offense, was at issue. Which is why I’ve been mentioning things like crimes and criminal offenses in this thread. While an impeachable offense is anything Congress says it is, the political reality is that an impeachment that fails to allege a crime isn’t going anywhere.
So some vague comment about lying to the American people doesn’t cut it. A lie under oath is a crime. A lie on TV is not a crime.
Oh. So a lie that gets thousands of people dead isn’t a crime, but lying about a knob job is. Bill C did lie, I’ve no doubt, and deserved censure and rebuke. For being appallingly stupid, if nothing else.
But lies that slaughter thousands of innocent people are not illegal, if you put a fine enough point on “legal”? Thats the sort of sophisticated thinking that makes America the beloved of the nations! That here, even if Justice is not served, it is at least servile.
As I had to explain to RedFury in a recent Pit thread, there is simply no law against a POTUS lying the country into a war.
Who ever imagined we’d need one?!
(Well, OK, anybody old enough to remember Tonkin Gulf, but who else?)
In a word… right.
If we were talking about an ordinary run-of-the-mill serial killer, I assume (I hope!!) that you’d be outraged if the government were able to convict him without showing that he’d actually committed a crime. If he were killing people in some novel way, something that fell outside the legal definition of a crime, I would hope you’d be interested in passing a law to clear up that lack… AND that you’d vehemently oppose an effort to jail him.
It’s a fundamental tenet of criminal law that the law must specifically describe the acts that are prohibited; the statutes are construed strictly against the government.
I’m very confident you favor that approach where the target is a homeless addict. For some reason, you are unwilling to extend it to politicians you disagree with.
Or those older, who remember FDR.
Impeachment is constitutionally a political process that has nothing to do with criminal law. After all, the official in question is not threatened with loss of civil rights, only with loss of his/her job.
And I shouldn’t have to remind you of that.
Agreed. Impeachable offenses are not crimes; they are whatever the House says they are, a political decision.
HOWEVER – as I said above, the political reality is that an impeachment that fails to allege a crime isn’t going anywhere.
So while what you say is true, it’s not complete. The reality of the situation is that if you cannot allege a crime, you won’t get an impeachment.