Truthfully, I think it is too petty for a congressional censure. Do I think that desecrating the flag is petty? Hell no, and I do not agree with GW’s decision to write on the flag. However, Congress has a lot more important things to be doing right now, other than slapping the hand of the president because he wrote on a flag.
Not to quibble, but the D.C. Metropolitan police have no authority to arrest the president. I don’t think they can even go onto White House grounds. In D.C. there are a number of different police jurisdictions, and the White House grounds are patrolled by the Treasury police (a.k.a., the Secret Service, but the ones who patrol the grounds are mostly uniformed).
That being said, I’m not sure even they have the authority to arrest the president. I was working in the Senate during impeachment times, and the office I was working in was very friendly with the then-Sergeant-at-arms. He always said that only he had the authority to arrest the president.
I’m not sure about that, but I heard it from his mouth, so I took his word at it.
W. is not exactly my favorite snuggle-bunny, but I see this as pretty low on the list of things to get upset about. If he violated a flag code, the problem is with the code, not with him. This is only slightly less important an infraction than, say, lying about a blowjob.
Daniel