All true but the last bit.
Not quite true on two counts. Firstly, there were no troop numbers explicitly mentioned in the most recent attempt in the Senate. If you read the actual bill that was proposed (I linked to it in your “try and try again” thread), it was up to Bush to determine the numbers, and it allowed an unspecified number to remain in Iraq indefinitely. Secondly, there are 60 votes in the Senate to get some sort of troop withdrawal “deadline” thru, but not that particular one. If the Dems actually want to govern, they will compromise with a few Senate Republicans to get such a bill thru. It may be, however, that they are more interested in getting Republicans on record for voting against a withdrawal than they are for actually enacting legislation to put some such withdrawal in place.
It now appears Ashcroft granted Cheney’s office an open line to the DoJ WRT to all its ongoing investigations. Presumably that still remains in place.
Well, anything to misdirect attention from Bricker’s boy. Sense or not.
-Joe
Cite?
But this is sort of a curious standard, isn’t it? The President can violate the constitution however he chooses, as long as when the Supreme Court rebukes him he stops.
If Bush locked up everyone who posted to the SDMB tomorrow, and next week the Supreme Court told him to stop, so he did, would that absolve him of the original crime?
What do you mean by “made it stick”?
I don’t think Nancy Pelosi is reading this thread, so I’m not sure why you’re arguing with her.
The curious thing is that this kind of hyperbolic (and inaccurate) statement would (and probably will, excepting my comment here) go without comment and be given a pass. Curious for a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, ehe?
Would he be personally handcuffing us and hauling us off to the hooscow, or would he leave that up to Chaney?
-XT
Uh, what?
ETA: to be specific, my question is how a hypothetical can be either hyperbolic or inaccurate.
Which part was confusing?
-XT
I think perhaps you just misinterpreted what I said.
I’ll give it another try. I understood **John **to be saying that he wouldn’t find the President culpable if the President illegally arrested someone so long as he lets this person go when SCOTUS says so as a result of a habeas petition. I think that’s a curious standard, because it means the President could arrest whomever he likes so long as he releases them when SCOTUS gets around to telling him to do so. Hence my SDMB-based example (which is not, as you seemed to have taken it, meant to be a realistic scenario).
Interesting. So, this is simply a hypothetical…say some alternative universe where the President COULD or CAN violate the constitution however he chooses? I mis-underheard you then…I thought, responding as you were to John Mace, you were speaking of THIS universe.
Apologies. Carry on.
-XT
Gotcha. As I said, apologies…I mis-underheard you.
-XT
I should have been clearer in my original post, as I was speaking specifically of the *Hamdi *case. This was an individual captured on the battlefield, with probably cause, and being held outside the borders of the US. If the president were to act as you described wrt to the posters on this MB, there would not be probable cause and we would, many of us, be located within the physical borders of the US. I think the two situations are worlds apart in terms of the legal precedents surrounding them.
So, yes, I would hope the president was impeached immediately if he rounded up all the posters on this MB without cause.
So supposing in both cases the President’s action was illegal, it is a question of just how obviously illegal it was?
That question doesn’t make sense. If both are illegal, then one is not more obviously illegal. I think the *Hamdi *case was one of uncertain illegality (we should be saying “constitutionality”, but close enough for government work) that needed clarification from the SCOTUS.
I think Bush’s actions in the Padilla case are much more disturbing and potentially illegal, but note that although the SCOTUS refused to take the case on technical grounds, a lower court did affirm Bush’s authority to hold him the duration of the conflict with al Qaeda:
At any rate, I think you’re overestimating how “obviously illegal” this is.
Why? Killing a person because you don’t like them and without any justification or excuse is obviously illegal. Many many things are not so obviously illegal, even though they might eventually be judged to be so by a court. The obviousness is a subjective, the illegality is objective.
I’m not overestimating anything. I’m trying to understand your personal standard for judging the President by asking you hypotheticals, which is why I said “suppose.”. As I understand it presently, your standard for the President’s culpability varies by the degree that something is obviously unconstitutional/illegal. Hence, in a case in which his lawyers can argue one way and the ACLU can argue another, he isn’t to blame. But in a case where no one would defend him (rounding up the SDMB, say), he is to blame. Do I have that right?
No, you don’t have that right. Frankly, you don’t appear to be trying to understand what I say, but rather you seem to be trying to distort it into something that it clearly isn’t. That makes me less than interested in continuing this “debate”.
I’m sorry you have that impression. Will you at least let me know what I’ve said that has given you that idea?