by publius
The NYT explores the “risk and reward” of an expanded Democratic majority next session. It’s pretty much the same narrative that followed Pelosi’s rise to power — how will they manage to keep the liberal and conservative wings happy? (Pelosi, it should be noted, hasn’t had much of a problem on that front).
Anyway, the article (quoting Mondale) suggests that 60 (or close to it) won’t guarantee the ability to move legislation.
But even with a 60-vote majority, Democrats could face challenges in pushing their agenda, said former Vice President Walter F. Mondale, who had experience with such wide margins during the Carter administration and as a Democratic senator in the 1960s.
“People tend to think that if you have got 60 votes you can pass anything you want,” Mr. Mondale said. “It means you can pass a lot more. There’s no question about it. But it’s not a slam-dunk.”
I mean, that’s always true in some respects. But I think it’s less true than people think. The old Democratic majorities of yesteryear depended upon a lot of Southern Democrats (the old school super-conservative, often racist ones). Those types are not ALL gone from the party — but it’s pretty close. Plus, the demography is changing to make that particular bloc of voters less important every passing year.
The truth is that (knock on wood) the incoming Democratic majority will be the most progressive one in the nation’s history. The party’s been largely freed of relying on racist southern legislators, and the more liberal areas are now safely Democratic (as the GOP continues to disappear from places like the Northeast).
And I say “most progressive in history” with great pride. It’s easy to use simple-minded narratives about “left,” etc., to describe it, even though there’s no true left in America. But whatever word you prefer, I think recent years have shown that it is the new progressive mentality (market-friendly coupled with confidence in government activism; patriotic but not uber-nationalist) that simply has a better grasp of both the empirical nature of our problems and what do about them — e.g., global warming, taxes, foreign policy, financial meltdown, health care.
Again, none of this is to belittle the real problem of overreach. But the past isn’t a very good guide in this respect. Obama + 60 really is a whole new game.
OK….but remember, the Democratic Party threw Henry Wallace and “the left” under the bus before they managed to simply alienate the race-baiters from the party’s southern wing.
I’m sorry, but more humane, but still lame, centerism characterizes most of the folks who will pull the lever for Obama. When the Employee’s Free Choice Act passes, when we hightail it out of both Afghanistan and Iraq, and when we get really serious about global warming….well, then I’ll believe it.
Pelosi, it should be noted, hasn’t had much of a problem on that front
Well, you do have a vocal but small part of the left wing of the party upset with her for not going after Bush harder, ‘impeachment is off the table’, etc.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of hers — the Pelosi Era (December 2004-present) has seen the Democratic Party mount an awesome political comeback. The hope I lost in November 2004, I got back when she destroyed Social Security privatization, and it’s mostly gotten better from there.
Well, i agree about the new progressive movement. Unfortunatly it has hoovered up all the reality-contacting mitoclorians, so that the opposition party now has every manner of voodoo theories on economics and family structure and the environment and whatever else you can imagine. We’ve reached a place where ‘ideas’ or ‘values’ really have no place in our political discourse, because it is just reality versus the barbarians.
Nancy Pelosi didn’t destroy Social Security privatization; that was a carefully organized and well-funded campaign by unions, progressive bloggers, and other liberal advocacy organizations. The leadership of the Democratic Party, including Pelosi, bought in, but did not lead or drive the campaign.
Taking impeachment off the table has allowed the current regime to set horrific precedents wrt blowing off Congressional subpoenas and the rule of law, whatever electoral benefits anyone sees in the maneuver.
As for an Obama administration, it says it all that Richard Rubin could be the next Secretary of the Treasury, and in any case will have way too much influence. The foxes are still in the henhouse. This isn’t going to be a progressive administration, but a centrist one.
Nell, impeachment had no way of being on the table, not when it requires 67 Senators. If Nancy hadn’t said that, Bush could blow off impeachment threats just the same. There’s no way you’re getting Joe Lieberman and 16 Senate Republicans to impeach without a Bush-Bin Laden sex tape.
I’m really happy with the work that labor and people like Josh Marshall were doing on privatization. But the in-DC strategy component of beating privatization was more Pelosi than anybody else. And given how badly that part of the game was played until Pelosi started running things, I feel really lucky to have her.
The Gephardt-Pelosi difference is like night and day.
I seem to remember that in the 70s after a huge Labor Party win the prime minister (Wilson?) had a hell of a time keeping members in line because MPs perceived (more or less correctly) that their vote in itself wasn’t a big deal.
With so many Blue Dogs, why is it unlikely that some similar dynamic would play out? Different systems so maybe different dynamics, but there’s Will Rogers “not a member of any organized party” epigram.
Also isn’t it possible that a lot will depend on just how monolithic and oppositional the Senate GOP turns out to be?
After the 2006 elections, partly because the GOP “moderates” had mostly been defeated, the GOP was way more conservative and ideological than before. I haven’t seen a breakdown of the likely GOP representation either by region or by ideological orientation, but it’s an easy guess that the GOP congresscritters won’t be, uh, more flexible.
Neil t.E.W.: But the in-DC strategy component of beating privatization was more Pelosi than anybody else.
I welcome evidence for this assertion. Until you provide some, I decline to accept it.
The in-D.C. strategy component was no more Pelosi than it was any other member of Congress.
The issue only became a campaign because the Bush administration made it one, in a classic case of overreach. It was a gigantic gift to Democrats, being one of the only issues that could have united them so completely.
Even at that, it required the work of a liberal coalition to set the terms of the debate and help enforce message discipline — too many Democrats in early 2005 were accepting the bogus big-money line that there was a looming Social Security funding crisis.
Nell, impeachment had no way of being on the table, not when it requires 67 Senators.
Impeachment doesn’t require a single Senator. The House impeaches; the Senate tries. Conviction in the Senate would require 67 Senators. Both the Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton cases suggest that impeachment without conviction can make a difference.
The better political “realist” argument against impeachment was that Pelosi didn’t have the votes in the House to impeach. But saying so reveals how not-so-progressive any Democratic majority that relies on dozens of Blue Dogs is bound to be. For example, there remain very solid, bipartisan, pro-torture majorities in both Houses of Congress.
I think you’re missing a point: In order to reach this level in Congress, the Democratic party has had to elect a LOT of members who have campaigned on being conservative on social issues, and who face a substantial chance of defeat in the next election if that stance proves to have been a sham. You’ve got those 60 votes for some procedural matters, but on a lot of issues some of the members are going to HAVE to defect if they want to keep their seats.
No argument that Pelosi’s an improvement on Gephardt, but “like night and day” goes way too far.
The FISA cave-in and the decision that it was far more desirable to appear to want to end the occupation of Iraq than to end it are only two of the most serious of her failures of leadership.
As to impeachment: actions can have important political effects even if there’s little chance of their complete success. Given the way in which this regime lawlessly defied Congressional subpoenas, it became clear within months of the seating of the 110th Congress that only impeachment hearings could allow real investigation to take place. Yet Pelosi’s off-the-table edict made sternly worded letters the Congressional response, which has set a truly unsettling precedent.
Nell, I’d refer you to this Time article, which locates the strategy behind defeating privatization in the generally more aggressive approach to opposition that Pelosi displayed.
Ben, I’m using ‘impeachment’ as a shorthand for impeachment and conviction. Maybe I shouldn’t, but that’s how a lot of people have come to talk these days. And the Bill Clinton case shows that impeachment with failed conviction can make a difference in the wrong direction. The House GOP lost five seats in 1998. Now, of course, they impeached for ridiculous reasons. But I don’t see any reason to think that bringing impeachment proceedings necessarily damages the incumbent president. If the president survives, he can claim a measure of vindication.
Neil, I don’t know of any Bush-Bin-Laden sex tape but there is this:
link 😉
I don’t know whether Ben’s correct that there are solid pro-torture bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress. The documented majorities (mainly for the sickening Military Commissions Act) were pre-2006 election, and were the product of leadership cave-ins in advance.
I look forward, without undue optimism, to some votes that will support or disprove Ben’s characterization.
I’m using ‘impeachment’ as a shorthand for impeachment and conviction. Maybe I shouldn’t, but that’s how a lot of people have come to talk these days.
Actually I think the only people who talk this way are those who are trying to make excuses for Pelosi’s stance. Nobody says that Clinton was not impeached, for example.
And the Bill Clinton case shows that impeachment with failed conviction can make a difference in the wrong direction. The House GOP lost five seats in 1998. Now, of course, they impeached for ridiculous reasons. But I don’t see any reason to think that bringing impeachment proceedings necessarily damages the incumbent president. If the president survives, he can claim a measure of vindication.
The reasons for impeachment do make a critical difference. And in the Clinton case they were ridiculous. So comparisons with the Clinton case are a bit apples-and-oranges. Nonetheless, they’re instructive.
The 1998 Republican Congressional losses took place prior to impeachment, as the hearings were going on. Clinton was impeached about a month later, in December 1998.
And I think a good case can be made that the next three election cycles went as well as they did for the GOP in part because of impeachment.
Certainly impeachment altered Gore’s campaign in 2000 in ways that were not helpful for his party. Without impeachment, Gore would never have chosen Joe Lieberman to be his running mate, for example.
Brett, your basic thesis may well be right, but not if you (as you did) connect it to social issues. There just aren’t that many divisive social issues for which the Democrats have any affirmative legislative priorities, at least so far as I know. There are bills they don’t want debated, let alone passed, but achieving that goal requires only control of the chamber. I’m open to your naming some bill you can see being put forward, but right now I don’t know of one. Now, there are a fair number of Dems in Congress who cannot be relied upon to promote health care, or union rights, or progressive taxation, etcetera. But those aren’t social issues, and while some of the least reliable Dems on economic issues (Baucus, Landrieu) hail from red states, they’re hardly alone. Chuck Schumer’s state is as blue as they come and he’s completely reliable on social issues, but his work to protect the privileged tax status of hedge fund managers was widely seen as very important.
“As for an Obama administration, it says it all that Richard Rubin could be the next Secretary of the Treasury,”
It says even more that Obama is so enthusiastic about having unrepentant Iraq War supporter Colin Powell as an advisor, and possibly even in his Administration. I’m enthusiastically voting against McCain, not in favor of Obama.
Obama and Powell
Powell and Iraq
This is probably ignorance on my part, but what’s the compelling argument that taking impeachment off the table prevented hearings on FISA and torture and a gazillion other Bush Admin abuses?
Or war-profiteering. Truman made his reputation during WWII that way, IIRC.
Don Johnson- Your comment reminds me of what I’ve been reading over at Larison’s blog lately.. Larison is sure that Obama will initiate a war with Iran.. on the basis of what seem to me to be fairly vague assertions by Obama that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable. (Not a quote, just the sense.)
Couldn’t you argue equally well that Obama is embracing Powell as thanks or even as, uh, preemption, since Powell caused Clinton problems?
I seem to recall hearing claims a while back that Obama got the more dovish of the (Bill) Clinton foreign policy team.
I don’t pretend to know either way; hopeful but cautiously optimistic about Obama.
The case for impeaching Clinton was not ridiculous. It was, however, ridiculed, not quite the same thing.
I don’t think it would actually have hurt Congressional Democrats to have impeached Bush, IF they’d been willing to put forth a strong case. The problem Congressional Republicans faced was that, after the Starr report, their base wouldn’t let them get away without impeaching, but in the face of Clinton’s ‘Ellen Rometsch‘ strategy, they dared not do an effective job of it.
They tried to split the difference, nominally impeaching, but dropping most of the charges, and keeping most of the evidence quiet. Result? Clinton survived, several members of the Republican leadership were taken out by strategic leaks of their dirty laundry, and both Republicans AND Democrats were mad about the effort, for opposite reasons: Democrats because it was attempted, Republicans because they’d taken a dive.
It’s an old, old principle: Trying to kill the king is no time for half measures.
yoyo (up thread):
” …..it is just reality versus the barbarians.”
Not only that, I’d add that the “reality” the country is going to be facing after the Inauguration has been created by the barbarians.
They’ve already sacked the place and remade it into their image.
They are hiding inside the walls, which they built out of paper mache and tinder, having violated all of the building codes because of their effing ideology.
Obama will have little manuevering room: deficits put in place purposely to destroy government, storerooms empty, water poisened, and the livestock have been wantonly slaughtered, all to feed those who didn’t need it.
The privation our country is going to face because of this economic debacle is going to be wicked, and could lead to an ugly, ruthless social movement that will erase the petty partisan dividing lines of the past 35 years.
Hungry people losing their jobs and homes have been armed to the teeth by the filth in the NRA and juked up into a lather by the scum who have commandeered the Republican Party over the past number of years.
Obama’s up to it but the resources of the Federal government are not.
The case for impeaching Clinton was not ridiculous. It was, however, ridiculed, not quite the same thing.
No, it was ridiculous. Sorry.
“The case for impeaching Clinton was not ridiculous.”
Well, yes, it most definitely was.
To return to beating my dead horse, while pragmatically impeachment is off the table, it’s a Sure Thing if anything is that when a Dem Admin takes over and begins its housecleaning there will be a lot of dirt under a lot of carpets that will be exposed.
But will the Dems be any more aggressive about Congressional investigations of Bush Admin dirt than they were 2007/8?
I’ve seen it asserted the Congress was as timid as it was because many Dems were in one way or another complicit in the abuses.
A man occupying a position which you cannot assume without taking an oath had demonstrated his contempt for all oaths. Said oath required him to see the laws faithfully executed, and in his own case he led a conspiracy to see them defeated.
No, I think the guy was properly subject to impeachment, having demonstrated he wasn’t fit for the office he occupied. You may disagree, but the case is not ridiculous.
Nor is the case for impeaching Bush. We don’t impeach nearly enough people, if you ask me, we’ve let standards really slip.
You may disagree, but the case is not ridiculous.
I repeat: it was, in fact, ridiculous. This isn’t a question of disagreement, it’s a question of being ridiculous.
A man occupying a position which you cannot assume without taking an oath had
demonstrated his contempt for all oaths.lied under oath when he was asked if he’d had sex with a woman not his wife.Fixed that for you.
It is a mystery to me how many Republicans argue that if a Democratic President will lie under oath about having had an affair, that means he will lie under oath about anything – whereas if a Republican President carefully avoids being made to testify under oath about a terrorist attack on the United States, that means he’s a completely honest all-around-good-guy.
This thread demonstrates why the large margins in the House and Senate will not be enough. There are going to be holy wars against Obama when he tries to pass legislation that is inclusive of multiple points of view and doesn’t represent the perfect outcome dreamed of by the most liberal Democrats, and separately there will be members of both bodies that try to showboat their own importance by “maverickness”. I say this as a lifelong left liberal, but I am old enough to remember quite well the last time we had large Democratic margins in the Congress.
“It is a mystery to me how many Republicans argue that….”
I have to note that since Brett clearly didn’t argue the argument you outline, you’re making a non-sequitur.
Disagree with Brett all you like, but he also said that Bush should be impeached. Not hardly that Bush is “a completely honest all-around-good-guy.” Non-sequitur.
You broke it for me, Jes.
1. He demonstrated his contempt for his marriage oath.
2. He demonstrated his contempt for the oath he took as a witness in the civil case.
3. He demonstrated his contempt for the oath he took when testifying before the grand jury about his obstruction of justice.
4. And he demonstrated his contempt for the oath he took as President to see the laws faithfully executed, when he committed that obstruction of justice in the face of a perfectly legal investigation.
It’s not just one oath he violated, but pretty much every oath he ever took.
And, no, I don’t think Bush is a completely honest all-around good guy. As I recall mentioning here before, I voted for him strictly as the lesser evil, only to learn he wasn’t nearly so lesser as I’d been led to believe.
Our politics in this country are seriously screwed up, the whole system is pretty efficient at making sure that honest, all around good guys don’t get very far. When the system is corrupt, honest people are dangerous, who knows what they might be willing to put up a fuss about?
It’s interesting, again, that Brett finds it of national importance when a Democratic President has sex with someone he’s not married to – and too trivial to be worth talking about when a Republican President obstructs investigation into the worst terrorist attack on US soil.
Republicans sure do love them some Clenis…
You sure showed that strawman, Jes! Now please either substantiate your implication that Brett is misrepresenting his position on Dubya’s record or stop making it. Also, of all Bush’s impeachable actions, why do you choose to focus on his limited cooperation with the 9/11 commission? I mean, we’ve got lies leading to war, torture, Habeas, domestic surveillance, perverting the civil service, etcetera – and you choose a legal gray area (was he even technically subpoena’d?) that feeds into some famous Tinfoil Hat Brigade obsessions?
When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over in ’94 and declared they were playing a new game that didn’t follow the rules of the past, I called BS.
When Francis Fukayama declared the end of History, I called BS.
When they said that the internet boom didn’t obey the laws of the past, I called BS.*
When they said we’d be greated as liberators in Iraq, I called BS.*
When they said that our light force footprint in Iraq was the dawn of a new era in fighting and we didn’t need more troops for any stinkin’ counterinsurgency, I called BS.
When Barney Frank and others declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t need to obey they laws that govern other firms, I called BS.
When they argued that the housing boom represented a new equilibrium in the market, I called BS.
My record is not perfect and the above benefits from a healthy does of self-selection. Still.
I call BS.
von
*I still supported the war.
von: *I still supported the war.
And aren’t you embarrassed about that now?
And aren’t you embarrassed about that now?
No.
I think we should ammend the US Constitution to establish a 4th Branch of Govt: The Office of Bullshit Detection (OBD). This office will have a single occupant elected to a two year term by national direct vote, known as the Officer of Bullshit Detection of the United States (OBDUS)
The OBDUS shall have no formal powers or responsiblities, except that on any occasion where a member of one of the other branches is speaking publicly in their capacity as an elected official (i.e. State of the Union Addresses, speeches in Congress, press conferences, appearances on Sunday morning talk shows, etc.) the OBDUS shall be permitted to stand in the background behind the speaker, and at his or her discretion the OBDUS shall be permitted to hold up a small sign (no more than 1 foot by 1 foot) with neatly printed letters which spell out the message: “This is Bullshit”.
No waving or shouting, however.
I further move that in the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, von be appointed the first OBD, since it is too late in the election cycle to organize a vote for this very important office.
Holy crap, this is the best policy proposal I have ever heard. Awesome. Somehow I get the feeling that this would be an actual us-vs-elites issue (as opposed to who can’t bowl). Like Carlin said, if bullshit were somehow removed, the whole political-corporate-media edifice would collapse.
I think just posting a dummy with a sign would work about 93% of the time, and save immensely on salary costs, given the need to cover 535 legislators, two executives, and 9 Supreme Court Justices.
The other 7% we could chalk up to rounding error.
Fermion: what’s the compelling argument that taking impeachment off the table prevented hearings on FISA and torture and a gazillion other Bush Admin abuses?
It’s up to you to decide how compelling it is, but I made the argument above:
Given the way in which this regime lawlessly defied Congressional subpoenas, it became clear within months of the seating of the 110th Congress that only impeachment hearings could allow real investigation to take place. Yet Pelosi’s off-the-table edict made sternly worded letters the Congressional response, which has set a truly unsettling precedent.
KagroX made the case in more detail repeatedly at DailyKos from before the 2006 elections, but the essence of it is that the WH wouldn’t respond to Congressional requests to testify (which proved correct), and that only impeachment would compel testimony.
The Democratic leadership, Pelosi very much included, has shown a reluctance to undertake any real investigation of torture or warrantless spying. I suspect that’s because they’re complicit in approving both abuses of power. I think that Pelosi’s declaration before the 110th Congress opened was designed to guarantee that investigations wouldn’t have teeth, as well as to reassure centrist and converted-Republican voters that there wouldn’t be any “partisan witchhunts”.
I have complete scorn for any Democrats who use that kind of language to refer to a possible impeachment, considering the scale and nature of the crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney regime.
The paragraph in my comment above beginning with ‘Given the way…’ and ending with ‘…unsettling precedent’ was meant to be in quotation marks. It’s excerpted from my comment at 12:09.
von: No.
Despite the fact that you now know you were shamelessly lied into supporting a war of aggression that led directly to the deaths of over a million people? Of course you’ve never put pics of those people on this blog…
Or do you feel that because so many people were lied to, you don’t need to be embarrassed about having been conned?
Well, people, impeachment need not remain off the table during the next Congress. Paragraph 7 of Article I, § 3 of the Constitution states:
The expiration of the current president’s term does not make impeachment moot; the House can still investigate and vote articles of impeachment, with the Senate to determine disqualification from holding federal office in the future.
This is not a mere academic question. After serving as president, John Quincy Adams served in the House of Representatives and William Howard Taft served as Chief Justice of the United States. After serving as vice-president, Richard Nixon served as president and Hubert Humphrey served as a U. S. Senator. Walter Mondale served as Ambassador to Japan and was nominated to run for the Senate from Minnesota when Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash.
Here’s hoping that the next Congress will pursue articles of impeachment as to whether President Bush has taken care that the laws be faithfully executed as to electronic surveillance, as well as numerous other topics. Impeachment of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales would seem appropriate, as well.
If you read Von at Redstate, when he comments, you’ll see a guy who gives a ration to both sides of the political spectrum.
However, this: “When Barney Frank and others declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t need to obey the laws that govern other firms, I declared BS.”
O.K. Fair enough.
But you shouldn’t have stopped with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Bullshit found a welcome home throughout the vaunted free enterprise system. Why stick to the idea that an “implicit” government guarantee is the sole cause of bullshit.
I’ll bet you can name many, many other firms who didn’t feel they needed to obey the legal laws, not to mention the laws of economics, too.
There was no law that forced private institutions to engage in the financial malpractice of the past number of years.
No one made them do it.
Well, except for the free market, which made them keep up with the other guy to fatten the bottom line.
Which, by the way, was the reason Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac became full of bullshit. Because they were losing market share.
Because bullshit was selling and all of the incentives of the free market were demanding bullshit.
I declare BS.
“Well, people, impeachment need not remain off the table during the next Congress.”
Maybe there’s someone here who doesn’t know this — doubtless at least a few someones — but many of us have discussed this many times. Certainly Nell and I have.
First an aside:
When Barney Frank and others declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac didn’t need to obey the laws that govern other firms, I declared BS.
Conservatives say the problem is that institutions lending to poor people weren’t given enough oversight.
Lefties say the problem is that institutions lending, buying, and selling to each other weren’t given enough oversight.
Anyone see the common thread here? Perhaps we’ve found a basis for common ground at last.
Back on topic:
It means you can pass a lot more. There’s no question about it.
Wrap it up. I’ll take it.
Thanks –
“Well, people, impeachment need not remain off the table during the next Congress.”
We’ve had the impeachment process for 200 plus years now; Any record at all of somebody being impeached after leaving office? And does anybody think Bush or Cheney have prospects for another office?
But, what the heck, go for it: Every second you spend on it will be a second you don’t spend on something that actually matters.
“Any record at all of somebody being impeached after leaving office?”
The case of the Honorable William Blount of Tennessee was ambiguous.
Thanks for asking.
“Every second you spend on it will be a second you don’t spend on something that actually matters.”
Sure, because torture, removal of habeas corpus, lying about getting the country into a war, and countless more possible crimes, shouldn’t really matter, and there should be neither punishment of anyone guilty, nor any deterrent for the future.
Setting aside this specific case, Brett, can you conceive of no possible crime which you might want to deter the Executive from by impeachment after office? And no possible crime which you think might warrant further investigation with subpoena power not subject to pardon — as only an impeachment investigation can do?
Just hypothetically?
“And does anybody think Bush or Cheney have prospects for another office?”
Since you ask, does the possibility of, say, hypothetical President John McCain, or hypothetical President Sarah Palin, succeeding to office in 2009, appointing Dick Cheney as, say, Secretary of Defense, or to an ambassadorship, or some other high office, strike me as impossibly low?
No, it does not.
Every second you spend on it will be a second you don’t spend on something that actually matters.
Sure, because torture, removal of habeas corpus, lying about getting the country into a war, and countless more possible crimes, shouldn’t really matter, and there should be neither punishment of anyone guilty, nor any deterrent for the future.
What Gary said.
Seriously, dude. WTF matters if not all of the above.
Thanks –
To add just one more specific, Brett: the Bush Department of Justice found:
Repeat: these are the conclusions of George W. Bush’s own Justice Department.
Now, if you strike the names from your brain, and insert, say, President Bill or Hillary Clinton, or President Obama, or President Dennis Kucinich, or whomever is the biggest bogey-bogey in your personal set of nightmares, do you really think this is not the sort of thing that “matters” and might need pursuing, both to punish those guilty, so they don’t wind up in future administrations, and to deter others in future? Or is it just all’s fair in love and politics to you?
I can’t believe that I’m about to agree with Brett and disagree with Gary and Russell, but here goes…
I think it would be a mistake for the Dems to pursue impeachment in the next Congress. Not because the Bush administration didn’t behave criminally (they did) or because consequences aren’t important (they are) — I just think that we have some very tough problems to solve, and that focusing on impeachment will burn up a lot of time and energy that should be used on those problems.
Also, pursuing impeachment has the potential to burn up a lot of goodwill among the electorate. Many progressives would love it, but I’m not convinced that it will play well among the moderates and independents who make up a significant portion of Obama’s constituency. To many people, it will look like Congress is playing its usual game of blaming people, rather than working together to solve problems.
I am hoping and expecting that on Nov 4 the electorate will deliver a ringing indictment of BushCo and their raping of the country. I truly believe that progressives need to let that be justice enough. Then we need to bring the country together and start solving problems. If we don’t, we’re toast.
Energy and healthcare. Those are what we need to focus our limited resources on — not impeachment.
The problem with the logic of “impeachment is off the table because we don’t have the votes to get it done” is that the POINT of having impeachment investigations would be to dig up and expose the COPIOUS amounts of lies, criminal activity, and general evil-doing on the parts of the Bush Administration. Publicly. Assuming the Bush administration didn’t just stonewall the impeachment hearings as they did all others, with all of their deeds public, there’d be the chance at least that some of the Republicans wouldn’t be able to keep the denial fields up and would have voted to impeach. Especially if the evidence were made public, and explained clearly what was done, why it was illegal, and why it didn’t do a damn thing to make anybody safer.
Instead, we’ve just got a Congress with a large chunk of Democrats who are complicit in allowing and not exposing the Bush Administration’s actions.
Great way to start a “progressive” era.
On Employee Free Choice didn’t only 2 House Dems vote against? The Blue Dog problem is going to be on fiscal policy not regulation as the south no longer has a cheap labour comparative advantage.
The current Congress should reconvene right after the election to impeach both Cheney and Bush.
what Marshall said.
impeachment made sense in 2006. it doesn’t make sense now.
seeing the GOP get smoked in this election is more than enough of a rebuke to Bushism.
The current Congress should reconvene right after the election to impeach both Cheney and Bush.
everyone who thinks this should think long and hard about the fact that Obama is going to crush McCain without once entertaining the notion.
the public isn’t interested.
and focusing the attention of the government and the press on the misdeeds of the few in the Bush administration will do nothing to help advance Obama’s agenda. it will only turn the Dems into the party of partisan revenge, in the eyes of the public.
like it or not, it’s time to move on and deal with the other serious problems we face.
seeing the GOP get smoked in this election is more than enough of a rebuke to Bushism.
The lesson of Nixon is: if there are no convictions, it’s not enough of a rebuke. Jail time is the only deterrent these sociopaths (e.g. Cheney) understand.
[It may be all the rebuke the public can stand, I agree, but that’s an entirely different point.]
I think you’re missing a point: In order to reach this level in Congress, the Democratic party has had to elect a LOT of members who have campaigned on being conservative on social issues, and who face a substantial chance of defeat in the next election if that stance proves to have been a sham.
Fine. Let them continue to vote their conscience on abortion, or gun rights, or equal rights for people with different sexual preferences. Heck, let them vote their conscience or that of their constituents on taxes and health care and the role of the US military in the world. But if they provide the 41st vote to support a filibuster and keep such matters from coming to a vote, well… I hope they’ll be honest, change parties, and run as an incumbent with an (R) after their name.
I just think that we have some very tough problems to solve, and that focusing on impeachment will burn up a lot of time and energy that should be used on those problems.
Yes, and criminality in the executive is one of the Augean stables that need mucking out.
Also, pursuing impeachment has the potential to burn up a lot of goodwill among the electorate.
Too bad for them. They should invest their goodwill in more worthy objects.
everyone who thinks this should think long and hard about the fact that Obama is going to crush McCain without once entertaining the notion.
Whether the criminal actions of this administration are investigated and prosecuted has nothing to do, and ought have nothing to do, with Obama.
the public isn’t interested.
Likewise, it has nothing to do, and ought have nothing to do, with the general public’s level of interest.
Why, you may ask, is this such a big freaking deal?
Anarch has the answer:
The lesson of Nixon is: if there are no convictions, it’s not enough of a rebuke. Jail time is the only deterrent these sociopaths (e.g. Cheney) understand.
How many more times do you want this same sorry set of criminal, anti-democratic SOB’s to show up?
To be honest, I don’t really give a crap about impeachment per se. I’d prefer criminal investigation.
Hard time, public humiliation, and utter banishment from public life. These people are life-long, anti-democratic criminals.
Put an end to it. Round them up, expose them publicly, and punish them to the full extent of the law.
Thanks –
“How many more times do you want this same sorry set of criminal, anti-democratic SOB’s to show up?”
Example. Example. Example. Example.
“To be honest, I don’t really give a crap about impeachment per se. I’d prefer criminal investigation.”
Article II, Section 2:
I think we can have a band that includes russell’s backbeat and cleek’s weird-ass distorted production values.
I think Obama and the new Congress should shove the brand new agenda down the Republicans throats.
But I want Obama’s White House focused. No office space for guys and gals looking to wreak vengeance and/or justice on the Republican Party.
I want that done independently. I want the conservative noise machine shut down and shut up by vigilante action.
I want the Democratic Party to stop appearing on FUX news, and if they appear with Republicans on any other network, I want two-word responses from Democrats to anything Republicans say: “Shut up” and “Fuck you”.
I want Limbaugh, Levin, and the rest of the scum taxed by the word. I want angry crowds throwing cabbage at them when they try to get home from their dens of bullshit.
Bush does not get invited to the White House for reunions of former Presidents. No joint photo ops with the Republican minority.
I want liberal Joe the Plumbers wearing visible weaponry interviewed about how piised off they are at what the Republican Party has done to destroy America.
I want Alaska sold to either China and Russia and I want the check sent to the Treasury to pay off the theft that has gone on since 1980. Hopefully, most of the Republican Party will have settled there before the sale closes so that they can look into Putin’s soul from Palin’s bay window.
I want the Republican Party at the local and state levels run out of business by any means.
Cheating, lying, and stealing is fine by be.
We had good teachers. Thank you, Grover.
But Obama needs to focus his attention on good deeds and good governance.
I like Al Franken’s fantasy in the epilogue to The Truth, with Jokes. I herewith invoke fair use and manually copy the passage from Senator Franken’s letter to his grandson Barack in 2015, regarding the quickie impeachment of George W. Bush:
I want a Senator Franken, dammit!
the quickie impeachment of George W. Bush
Ah. A man can dream.
Too bad for them. They should invest their goodwill in more worthy objects.
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it ignores political reality. There are only a few big things that the next Administration and Congress can reasonably accomplish. Assigning priorities is crucial. Furthermore, it is going to take some level of bipartisan cooperation to get things done — even with a hefty majority in both houses. We can’t get everyone on board, but we do need the middle on board, and we can’t do this without making a serious attempt at bipartisanship.
The public is sick of the partisan bickering in Washington. Absolutely sick of it. They do not want to see Congress spending its time looking for culprits. They want to see Congress getting the country out of the crapper. Too bad for them, you say? Aren’t you just giving a big “eff you” to the huge number of people who take Obama at his word when he says he wants to usher in a new spirit of cooperation? Believe me, those people will feel betrayed if Congress takes the path you suggest. And without their support, it will be very difficult to solve our problems.
Yes, and criminality in the executive is one of the Augean stables that need mucking out.
The best way to clean out those stables is for Obama to set a positive example by showing executive restraint, reversing the abuses of BushCo, and appointing responsible, competent people to his cabinet. If you believe that punishing the offenders by impeachment or (unlikely) convictions is going to dissuade politicians from abuses in the future, I think you are sadly mistaken. But if the Democrats can get their act together and show the people what good government looks like, then that will mean something. That might convince the doubters that government can solve problems rather than creating problems. Otherwise, forget it. If Congress gets bogged down in punishing the wrongdoers, you can expect the tables to turn again very soon.
I’m not saying that your anger isn’t justified. I just think that it’s completely counterproductive for those in Congress to let such anger guide their agenda. I don’t expect to change your mind on this, and that’s fine. Fortunately, I don’t think Obama will endorse the path you suggest. I’m not sure about the leaders of Congress, but I believe that Obama will exercise his leadership to ensure that attention remains focused on positive solutions.
Marshall, I don’t know what Obama will do, but I suspect he will be pragmatic about solving problems. And here’s the thing:
Ignoring Bush and Cheney’s malfeasance is a problem.
Just for instance: Dick and Dubya, acting through Gonzo and his Palin-wannabe Monica Goodling, seeded DOJ with sleeper cells of GOP hacks in civil-service positions. That’s a problem. A “what’s done is done” attitude toward it is not, in any sense, “good government”.
–TP
The notion that Pelosi has had no trouble holding the left and right of the Democrats together is just nonsense.
I’m one of her constituents. I’ve talked to people in her office. Pretty much all they ever tell us about anything is that if she did THAT, her leadership position would be endangered.
Are they just blowing smoke at the annoying DFHs? Sure — except they very obviously believe this. If Nancy Pelosi tried to actually lead in anything except the most cautious manner, Hoyer and Emmanuel would try to kick her out and she knows it. She might weather it, but she doesn’t want to risk it. So she does nothing much.
I see no evidence she wants the job of Speaker — the job of leading her caucus to any actual achievement. She’s just pleased as punch to wear the title.
Tony P,
I hear you. If I believed that it was possible to bring the rascals to justice without sacrificing other goals, I would say “go for it.” Unfortunately, nothing I have seen in the last 20 years of politics gives me confidence that it is possible.
Sometimes “good government” is about making unpleasant but necessary choices. I see this as a stark either/or: either they can bring those guys to justice, or they can attempt to make progress on energy and health care. If that’s the choice, there’s just no question in my mind about which is more important. I could be wrong about the either/or, of course — but the evidence of recent history gives me no reason to change my opinion.
What is the right thing to do about the Bush administration’s criminal activity? This is a tough one.
It’s a basic management technique to make a “to do” list and then sort it into priority order. With limited resources only some of the things on the list will get done. Resources include people time, money, and as we are talking about politics, popular support. Every action has some cost associated although it’s hard to predict with precision.
Then there are the benefits and risks. On the one hand, we want to prevent a recurrence of the abuses that have occurred. On the other, pursuing prosecutions may poison the atmosphere, delaying or even preventing resolution of other vital issues.
To my mind, the most important thing is to expose all the behavior. I believe it’s less important to punish individuals, although there have to be some consequences that bite if we wish to deter future wrongdoing. Maybe public shaming will be enough, maybe not.
The question is, what will bring about full exposure? Usually the way evidence gets into the public domain is through some legal process. I think in this case a formal proceeding will be necessary.
There has been some discussion of a “truth commission” analogous to that used in South Africa. I don’t know whether it would work but maybe it’s worth a try.
Marshall: There are only a few big things that the next Administration and Congress can reasonably accomplish.
And one of those big things has got to be, if the US wants to regain any international face at all, investigating and prosecuting the criminals from the previous administration. Which, unless the Democrats in Congress rule it out again, will inevitably lead to the impeachment of senior members of the Bush administration, and Bush / Cheney themselves.
Which is why Bush’s sane move in December/January would be to pre-emptively pardon everyone, right up to Cheney. If he wanted to acknowledge wrong-doing, once he’d pardoned Cheney, he could resign and be pardoned by Cheney, but I suspect Bush is too arrogant to think of that, and the sad thing is – probably he would escape prosecution or impeachment.
I think among of the first things for Obama to do are:
1) Obtaining a list of Bush’s pardons (=main suspects)
2) Making a dicreet call to the Hague hinting at the possibility that the US would extradite certain individuals, if asked, provided a confidential list would be sent before (allowing for a night and fog operation of arrest and rendition without interference)
3) set up a (non- or bi-partisan) commission looking into election irregularities in-depth backed by the full power of the executive (and judiciary) branch and with no time limit.
If it’s not heads-off or foreign incarceration, there will be no lasting effect*. Cynic that I am and believing that Obama will not survive** his first term in any case, he should at least be remembered for doing the right thing (or trying to).***
*The next GOP president will pardon everyone unrepentant or at least commute the sentences a la Scooter
**not metaphorically, I mean bomb, poison, sniper bullet etc.
***Provided there will be a president Obama in the first place, and I have severe doubts about that. I fully agree with Jes that 2000 and 2004 were not GOP victories and 2008 will be even dirtier.
Tony P.: A “what’s done is done” attitude toward it is not, in any sense, “good government”.
Thanks so much, Tony, for this concise and on-point statement of the case.
Marshall: Accountability for torture, massive domestic spying, and systematic politicization of the Justice Department are not “partisan bickering”. The perpetrators are not “rascals”; they are war criminals and
would-be dictators.
Hartmut: Your suggestions of a commission makes sense if impeachment is not going to go forward, but for election irregularities? After a massive Democratic victory at the polls? Please. That would be seen as partisan vengefulness, and the reforms necessary to minimize recurrence can all be accomplished legislatively.
The most serious crimes — torture, domestic spying and politicization of the justice system — are the ones that strike directly at our constitution and the rule of law.
If the Obama administration believes they will be given years to bring those who made torture U.S. policy to account, while giving respect and even official positions to war criminals like Powell, they are in for a rude surprise. My strong preference is not for the U.S. to be forced by international action to deal with the top of the torture pyramid; I want us to do it. Only restoration of the rule of law here will guarantee a sound foundation for international law.
On Employee Free Choice didn’t only 2 House Dems vote against? The Blue Dog problem is going to be on fiscal policy not regulation as the south no longer has a cheap labour comparative advantage.
Cheap votes for bills that would never pass the Senate and would get vetoed if they did.
Put 60+ Democrats in the Senate and a Democrat in the White House, and the Blue Dogs start voting with the GOP a lot more.
As for popular support for impeachment…
There was plenty of popular support for impeachment. With absolutely no encouragement from our political elites (and nearly no polling on the issue) the few polls in the last two years to address the question suggested that over 40% of the public supported impeachment.
Have hearings, drum up support, and well over half the American public would have been on board.
The Democrats didn’t impeach Bush because the Democrats didn’t want to impeach Bush, not because they couldn’t impeach Bush. The interesting question is why they didn’t want to impeach Bush.
“But if they provide the 41st vote to support a filibuster and keep such matters from coming to a vote,”
Precisely what would be demanded of them, of course: Do you really think social conservatives are such morons as to be satisfied with getting somebody’s vote only when it doesn’t matter? That’s NOT how such things are rated.
If you vote to bring AWB II to the floor, knowing it’s going to pass without your vote there, when the next election comes you get an F rating from the NRA even if you voted against it on the floor. It works the same way for all the other social issues.
You’ll get those guys’ votes for leadership fights, and a lot of stuff unrelated to social issues, but if you get it when you need it, you’re not going to have them after the next election, and they know it.
Nell, I think any Democrat can only win (with a tiny official margin) under the current conditions, when (s)he actually wins in a landslide. If the cancer of election “irregularities” is not burned out for good, Obama will at best be an episode because I can’t see anyone being able to pull of anything similar to the Obama campaign. The GOP will cry foul whatever is done (they will even cry foul after the Son of Cain is declared the winner with 50.1-51% in crucial swing states).
A winner Obama may can “get away” with ordering a close inspection of the last elections, a (Democratic) “sore loser” will not. Election day will be very, very, very ugly, and it will just be the warm-up for what will follow.
As some others have said, it would be the supreme irony, if Obama actually were the bogeyman he is painted at and send out his goon squads to his most unhinged detractors. That way more good could be done than if Obama just were the decent guy he (imo) is. Limbaugh in boiling oil (his own)… Mwuhhahaha!
Hartmut: Your suggestions of a commission makes sense if impeachment is not going to go forward, but for election irregularities? After a massive Democratic victory at the polls? Please. That would be seen as partisan vengefulness, and the reforms necessary to minimize recurrence can all be accomplished legislatively.
Could be, but given that at the moment I think a considerable majority of Americans are still in denial about the theft of the 2000 election, and an overwhelming majority still see nothing to worry about with regard to theft of the 2004 election – I think that to get the political willpower to pass the legislation, there has to be a thorough and impartial investigation to formally establish this.
And Hartmut’s right: if Obama wins, he is in a position to do it, in 2009, peacefully and lawfully. Whereas let this state of affairs continue, and the usual suspects will fix themselves right back into power – if not in 2012, then in 2016. No one is in such a position of moral authority to investigate electoral irregularities as the winner: no one is better placed to instigate changes in an electoral system than a party that very recently came to power under the old system.
There are other things that are morally more important – but this one thing will do more to prevent the US in future from falling into such a morass again, because it will require future rulers to be able to win elections – rather than the country having to tell itself, as a Bush declares himself the winner, that a majority of American voters are ignorant and morally bankrupt.
Hartmut, we have very different assessments of both the Democrats’ electoral chances and the reality and scale of different kinds of electoral fraud/irregularities.
Meaning no disrespect, I believe my experience puts me in a better position to make that assessment.
Fraud and irregularities are most effective in swinging a close election. This one is not going to be close.
There has been vote suppression on the part of Republican operatives for decades — systematic, ongoing, across the board; it’s part of the party’s general electoral strategy.
In the last decade, the scale and sophistication of these tactics has become decisive. The most serious include purging of voter files by means of suspect lists and in non-transparent manner (notice only to individual voters, not publication of the names purged), inadequate provision of voting equipment, barriers to early and absentee voting, and resistance to registration campaigns (including attempts to taint if not criminalize them through bogus claims of bogus “voter fraud”).
Much is known about these approaches, and the pushback is already underway. The one giant unknown — and here my direct familiarity does not give me any advantage over your analysis — is the extent of sheer theft through rigging of electronic voting machines.
That does need to be examined, but barring something extraordinarily fishy about the results on Nov. 4, it can move well down the list of to-be-investigated-and-corrected festering evils bequeathed by the current regime.
Marshall: If you believe that punishing the offenders by impeachment or (unlikely) convictions is going to dissuade politicians from abuses in the future, I think you are sadly mistaken.
Perhaps. If you believe that letting them go unconvicted or unimpeached is going to act as any kind of deterrant, however, you are wrong.
But if the Democrats can get their act together and show the people what good government looks like, then that will mean something. That might convince the doubters that government can solve problems rather than creating problems.
As I said above, the problem with this is that — while uplifting as all get it out — it’s simply wrong. It ignores not only the Nixon debacle (cf Rumsfeld, Cheney) but also the Iran-Contra debacle (cf Rumsfeld, Cheney) and myriad other Republican law-breaking and criminality over the past 30+ years. Time and time again these people have broken the law; time and time again they have been allowed to walk away from their crimes, in the spirit of reconciliation; and time and time again they break the law once more.
Let me reiterate what I said above: these people are sociopaths. Not in the stereotypical “I’ll kill me some coeds” sort of way, mind, in the sense that these people genuinely do not believe that the law applies to them. In the sense that they do not accept the kinds of constraints that the rest of accept as the price for participating in society. In the sense that they seek to aggrandize themselves and increase their wealth and their power at the expense of the country. In the sense that there are few things they won’t countenance in this pursuit. And bluntly, in the sense that (IMO) they genuinely regard you or I as unreal, or unmeaningful, to be disregarded as such. You can’t appeal to their better angels because they don’t have any, and you can’t innoculate the public against them because they’re persuasive, charismatic and far more effective liars than you’ll ever be at telling the truth.
These men are dangerous. They have done terrible things to our country, and in our country’s name. They need to be punished for their crimes, not just for all those they’ve wronged but to make it clear that there are certain things we will not accept. And if we don’t, heaven help us if the next gang of mafiosi learn the lessons of Nixon and Reagan — and George W Bush — because there will be no stopping them.
Well, I’m obviously in the minority opinion here! I don’t disagree with you all on the merits — I just see the politics differently. I take my cue partly from the fact that Congress is extremely unpopular right now — Republicans and Democrats. Why? Because they aren’t making any progress on the things that matter to most Americans.
Now, you’re arguing that bringing the Bush thugs to justice is an important and meaningful thing to do. Again, I don’t disagree on the merits. I’m as outraged as you are by the torture, the violation of civil liberties, and the politicization of the DOJ. But politics is perception. I’m not at all convinced that the majority of Americans will see this as a worthwhile focus for the next Congress. Are they wrong? Maybe. But you can’t blame them for being far more interested in economic survival and affordable health care.
Personally, I’m scared about the impending environmental apocalypse. If you think that the political situation is frightening now, imagine what will happen once we slide over that brink. This is a very difficult problem to solve, and it will require enormous political will. If it’s done right, I think it just might save us from environmental doom, and it will salvage the economy too. You seem to think that we can do this and punish the Bush criminals too. Maybe, but I’m very skeptical, and I think the stakes are just too high to risk it.
What Anarch said.
We keep putting off punishment in the name of getting on with the business of the country, and what does it get us? The crimes keep getting worse, and the criminals remain heroes and make sure we don’t get the business of the country done either. For anybody who managed to ignore the previous 15 years of bad faith, the last 2 years of filibusters are all the proof we need: we cannot govern side by side with these people. We need to defeat them, we need to smack them down, hard.
Heck, we would have had universal health care in 1995 if not for those crazy “Harry & Louise” ads, which would have had zero credibility if Clinton had gone after Iran-Contra. And we can whine all we want about Jed Bush and Scalia stealing the election in 2000, but it never should have been close enough to steal.
Enough cringing away from confrontation, we need to rub the Party faithfuls’ noses in just how crooked their crooks are — because their “useful idiots” are already crafting the media and pulpit narratives for the next 40 years about how America was stabbed in the back and morally corrupted by homosexuals, jews, blacks, atheists, and other unAmerican forces. Think I’m exaggerating? Look at the new revisionist histories of Vietnam. Read Ann Coulter’s bestseller, Treason. Listen to that Congresswoman calling for a new HUAC. Spend a day swimming in the sewer that is RedState. Come back when you realize deep in your bones that this crap works. A large and growing portion of the electorate actually believes, sincerely and with true fear, that we are babykilling fascist traitors.
30 years of accomodation and bipartisanship have landed us with HAVA, Diebold, and an all-Republican Court. If it’s not too late already, then the next time the GOP gets in power will be the last true change in power EVER. It looks like we will have a solid majority, let’s use it. If we can’t get convictions because of 40-50 lockstep Senators, we can at least get the news out there. Put witness perp walks on the 24-7 news cycle. Create press-handout videos, just like Bush did, listing every crime in each indictee’s careers, and how many years in prison they could get, and show the sick ghetto kids and bombed-out third-world houses they helped make with those crimes. Make conservatism as strong a stench in the nostrils of Main Street America as the Alger Hiss hearings made liberalism for 50 years.
Yes, it’s a bad time for this distraction. You know what? It’s always going to be a bad time. There is never a good time to rebuild your home, upgrade your computer systems, get surgery, or clean up your government. You do it anyway because the alternative is worse. We have had 8 years of the alternative, and we ain’t seen nothing yet, it will get a lot worse if we keep letting the rot spread. Enough.
Nell: That does need to be examined, but barring something extraordinarily fishy about the results on Nov. 4, it can move well down the list of to-be-investigated-and-corrected festering evils bequeathed by the current regime.
Do you really think that Obama will be able to investigate-and-correct all the festering evils bequeathed by Bush inside 4 years, in such a way that they won’t be undone immediately by the same crew coming in again in 2012? Or are you counting on Obama winning another landslide victory in 2012, overcoming Republican vote-rigging as we all hope he’ll do this year?
Hartmut is exactly right: the time for winners to demand electoral investigation is right after they’ve won. And without that, there isn’t any hope for future change: it’ll just go right back to business as usual.
Marshall: I’m not at all convinced that the majority of Americans will see this as a worthwhile focus for the next Congress. Are they wrong? Maybe. But you can’t blame them for being far more interested in economic survival and affordable health care.
The previous Republican-controlled Congress hardly bothered to meet: this past Congress has had to do an enormous amount of catch-up work: I think you might be surprised to find that a Congress that regards itself as a body voted in to do work, can actually do more than one thing at once.
Marshall, I agree with your goals and priorities, but I think the last 8 years are proof that the GOP will fight rational environmental and economic policies with every dirty trick they have. They will filibuster, they will propagandize, they will blackmail. We simply can’t get it done with them.
But you know what? We don’t need to. In fact, if we fight smart, then the harder we fight them, the more we will advance our other goals.
We are a Manichean culture. People are not galvanized by good policy — no matter how real the effects. You want to make big changes, you need to sell it as a fight against bad guys. Fortunately, we have authentic bad guys who actually did create the problems. Don’t separate these issues, combine them. We will get the economy and the environment fixed when we wrap the whole agenda into a single good-versus-bad narrative: the hard-working middle class are honest, decent people who were conned and robbed blind by multinational lobbyists — and now we will make those bast**ds PAY.
And, yes, people are sick of infighting. Sure they are, because they see both sides as equally bad. And mostly, they have been. But right now, good policy might just be good politics. So, let’s use that.
I see this as a stark either/or: either they can bring those guys to justice, or they can attempt to make progress on energy and health care.
IMO the either/or here is too stark.
I’m also not sure I agree with your assessment that progress on health care and energy are, out of hand, clearly higher priorities than taking some kind of action about the criminal activities of the current executive.
Here are the articles of impeachment drawn up against Nixon.
Could equally serious charges be made against members of the Bush administration?
Was threatening Nixon with impeachment, and pursuing criminal charges against the folks in his circle, disruptive to the everyday business of the nation?
Was it divisive? Politically polarizing?
Weren’t there other matters, of crucial import to the nation, hanging in the balance as well?
The answers are yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
So, you tell me if it was appropriate or useful for the Congress of the time to draw up articles of impeachment against Nixon, and to pursue criminal charges against his crew.
By my lights, the only mistake we made then was stopping before the stake was all the way through the zombie’s heart.
We’d all be a lot better off if more of them had spent a lot more time in jail, and had been prevented from ever having any involvement in public life again.
Habeas.
Torture.
Suppression of intelligence and spreading of misinformation, leading to an unnecessary war.
Illegal monitoring of American citizen’s private conversations.
Illegal politicizing of the DOJ and other branches of government.
The ‘unitary executive’ and the ‘fourth branch of government’.
And on, and on, and on. Seriously, Marshall, why does this list have to be any longer than ‘habeas’ and ‘torture’?
This isn’t about politics, and if we make it about politics we’re screwed. It’s about the corruption of the *fundamental institutions of governance* of this country.
It’s really f’ing important.
Thanks –
Gary –
I call bullshit on there being a “new progressive mentality (market-friendly coupled with confidence in government activism; patriotic but not uber-nationalist) that simply has a better grasp of both the empirical nature of our problems and what do about them — e.g., global warming, taxes, foreign policy, financial meltdown, health care.” it’s no
Re: Thullen, Russel, and Farber on Fannie/Freddie – I’m on record that Fannie/Freddie’s problems had to do with the fact that they were neither fish nor fowl. I would have preferred full privatization (with sell-offs), but, I would have accepted making them part of government as a second best solution. Instead, we got the worst of both worlds.
And, yes, I agree that derivatives and more exotic market devices needed more oversight. But Fannie/Freddie are the root of the run-up in home prices and the consequent effects on the private sector.
This isn’t about politics, and if we make it about politics we’re screwed.
i don’t think we’d have a choice. no matter how professionally the prosecution proceeded, the GOP would pull out all the stops to make damn sure the whole thing was publicly perceived as a partisan witch hunt. and 45% of the country would believe them.
cleek has it exactly right. If there was a way to do this without it becoming political, I would support it. I just don’t think that’s remotely possible.
This 60 minutes clip, embedded in this post, argues that the problem was not the housing market, but CDS.
Also, I’m not sure that the Nixon years are comparable to today. I think that the impending environmental catastrophe is much scarier than any crisis back then. We’re running out of time to do something about it.
the GOP would pull out all the stops to make damn sure the whole thing was publicly perceived as a partisan witch hunt. and 45% of the country would believe them.
My knee jerk reaction is to say “F them”. Followed quickly by a proposal to indict the whole damned Republican party as a criminal conspiracy under RICO laws.
More realistically, I’d say you are exactly right.
So, we, as a nation, either do it anyway, or not. If we do, it’s a sh*tstorm. If we don’t, we’ll be living with this crap for another generation, at least.
It’s gonna suck either way. You tell me which is the better choice.
But one thing for damned sure, *not* pursuing this stuff is not going to make it any easier to move a Democratic agenda forward. The flying monkeys are just getting tuned up.
Thanks –
That could be, but what’s it got to do with me?
“Re: Thullen, Russel, and Farber on Fannie/Freddie”
I haven’t written a word on Fannie/Freddie: are you on drugs, von?
Also, I’m not sure that the Nixon years are comparable to today. I think that the impending environmental catastrophe is much scarier than any crisis back then.
Well, we had a hostile arsenal of nukes aimed at our heads. That was kind of unnerving, if you stopped to think about it.
And, really, if you think that not pursuing this stuff is going to make it any easier to push a sane energy or environmental policy through Congress, IMO you just have not been paying attention.
Thanks –
It’s gonna suck either way.
agreed.
You tell me which is the better choice.
can’t. they both suck, in their own way.
IMO, the time to get into it was winter 2006/7. the fact that Pelosi and Reid didn’t is the biggest reason i chuckle when chuckleheads call then “dangerous”. those two let the opportunity pass, and now i get the sense that the country would rather just forget all about the Bush years…
I think we can have a band that includes russell’s backbeat and cleek’s weird-ass distorted production values.
i’ll do it, but i need payment up-front. there’s a hole in daddy’s bong, where all the money goes.
Well, we had a hostile arsenal of nukes aimed at our heads. That was kind of unnerving, if you stopped to think about it.
True. But there was a reasonable chance that the triggers on those nukes were not going to be pulled. If we do nothing about our energy and environmental problems, the worst will happen.
And, really, if you think that not pursuing this stuff is going to make it any easier to push a sane energy or environmental policy through Congress, IMO you just have not been paying attention.
I have been paying attention. I’m not overly optimistic about our chances for success. I hope (or pray) that the winds are shifting, and that a majority of Americans see the necessity for action on this front. If (and it’s a big if) we can start to make real progress on energy and health care, it would do more to build a sustainable Democratic majority than just about anything else I can imagine. As long as the Democrats themselves don’t fall into the same kinds of corruption, I believe that this will do more to restore sane government than prosecuting BushCo. Granted, there is a real possibility that the Dems will be corrupted by power, and this is a strong argument for your position. In the end, I’m just much less sanguine than you are about the possibility of accomplishing anything at all in the middle of that sh*tstorm. I’m not thrilled about our chances in the absence of a prosecution, either, but I think they are better.
I’m not thrilled about our chances in the absence of a prosecution, either, but I think they are better.
That’s cool. My guess is that events, for good or ill, will go your way rather than mine.
i’ll do it, but i need payment up-front.
Yeah, same here. Only in my case, there’s a hole in daddy’s mortgage payment and 401k where all the money goes.
No checks, either. And no “the crowd was kind of small tonight, how about if we comp you a dinner”. I ate at home.
I want green money, with a president on it. Or uncle Ben, even better.
cleek, no gated reverb on the snare, please! That’s so Phil Collins.
Thanks –
True. But there was a reasonable chance that the triggers on those nukes were not going to be pulled. If we do nothing about our energy and environmental problems, the worst will happen.
And as it will take more than 4 years (or even 8 years) to fix the energy and environmental problems, I think that’s a straightforward case for saying that the crooks need to be prosecuted and impeached – otherwise, they’re back in power and we really are doomed.
But Fannie/Freddie are the root of the run-up in home prices and the consequent effects on the private sector.
von, is there any evidence supporting this theory? Or, forget evidence, are there any credible experts you can cite who share your opinion in this regard?
I’m not trying to pick on you, but you’ve made a fairly strong claim here about a fairly complex set of issues, and it is a claim I haven’t seen reflected in any of the writings I’ve encountered…
Jes,
Since it will definitely take more than 8 years to solve those problems, we need to start making real progress on them now.
By the way, I completely respect the points that you, russell, and others have been making. I think this is something on which reasonable people can disagree.
An investigation of election flaws* should start immediately but not be limited in time (although first reports should be out before 2010 because of the next election). It should be non- or bipartisan**. The GOPistas will cry foul in any case. The longer it takes and the more thorough it is the more the public will imo accept the results.
*of all kinds, including registration fraud, faulty databases…
**and not be called the Hang-Blackwell-from-a-lamppost commission although it would fit.
Hartmut,
I agree with you on this point. It’s absurd that we can’t hold fair and transparent elections today. There’s just no excuse for it. This is something that can and should be approached in a bipartisan manner. The GOP won’t want to cooperate, but they’ll look really bad if they don’t. It seems likely that what you suggest would garner wide popular support if it’s set up correctly.
@Marshall:
I also respect the p.o.v. you’re articulating very well. Given that the disagreement here is only about different estimates of Congressional (and popular) will and capacity, I can’t help feeling that just a little more confident esprit de corps among those of us who know impeachment’s needed might make a big difference.
My question to you, and cleek, and others who believe that any such effort will be seen as a partisan witchhunt: Do you believe it’s a partisan witchhunt?
If you don’t, then why not help make the case rather than ceding the terms of debate beforehand because all those other people supposedly will think it’s a ?
The situation has a lot in common with the Social Security fight in 2005: three-quarters of the victory was internalizing early on the position that there is no crisis. The article cited by Neil the Ethical Werewolf (on the first page of comments) reminded me of one of Minority Leader Pelosi’s finest moments: To an anxious caucus member asking when the Democrats would be coming out with their plan to counter the administration’s privatizing proposal (to deal with the non-existent Social Security ‘crisis’), she said: “Never. How does never work for you?”
If there’s to be no impeachment of Cheney, Bush, or Gonzales, then we might as well remove the provision from the constitution. Truth commissions, commissions in general, are bullshvt, and have to work out their own procedures anew each time. Impeachment procedures are constitutionally provided and well known, and post-office impeachment hearings are excellent investigative tools.
Everyone seems to agree that it’s important that the facts of what was done get out. Then let’s get to it. A committee can keep steadily gathering the evidence while Congress moves on other vital business (health care, economic stimulus and financial re-regulation, labor rights, climate/energy policy).
Impeachment is a dandy idea–don’t let go of it. It is the essence of progressivism. With single party control of both the legislative and the executive branches and the support of the MSM, we can even call it a ‘show trial.’ How progressively retro is that?
Seriously, what Brett and Von are trying to say is that there is no more reason to think that the progressive left will fix things than there was to think the Bush crowd would fix things.
But back to impeachment, try making the case to the American public that Khalid Sheik Muhammad shouldn’t have been water-boarded. Good luck. Or that the detainees in Gitmo deserve the same constitutional rights as American citizens. Then watch the House and Senate change hands in 2010.
Bush crowed after his re-election that he now had political capital and he was going to use it. That was the ‘Mission Accomplished’ of his second administration. He got elected by getting anti-gay state constitutional amendments on a bunch of swing state ballots and using the rural fundamentalist vote to carry the day–one of many reasons why I left that party. Obama is riding a wave of disgust with Bush and fear of the economic unknown. The people are not crying out for progressivism and it is hubris of the worst kind to think otherwise. But since I think the left’s solutions are even worse than what passes for a right, by all means, come out swinging with the most liberal and intrusive stuff you have. The sooner everyone sees who they’ve elected, the sooner we can get back to gridlock.
mckinneytexas, you might as well stick with the party of rural fundamentalists; they’re the demographic who’re as supportive of torture as you seem to be.
Your characterization of impeachment investigative hearings as a ‘show trial’ is a fine bit of projection, considering that this regime has been conducting actual show trials at Guantanamo. Or had you missed that a whole series of definitely non-liberal military lawyers have refused to participate and resigned in disgust?
I don’t fool myself that the popular disgust with Bush is even mainly about torture and government spying on Americans. It’s a whole raft of things: stagnant wages, high gas prices, financial crisis, the incompetence and out-of-touch-ness seen during Katrina, the pointless and grinding occupation of Iraq, corrupt cronyism…
“Intrusive”? The only people who’re going to be intruded on by investigative hearings are the clique of criminals who shredded the rule of law during the last eight years: Cheney, Addington, Rice, Yoo, Gonzales, Bush, Rumsfeld, and a few more.
OT: I really, really don’t care for paged comments.
Nell,
My question to you, and cleek, and others who believe that any such effort will be seen as a partisan witchhunt: Do you believe it’s a partisan witchhunt?
No, I don’t. I think that BushCo violated the law, and in a better world they would be impeached and convicted.
If you don’t, then why not help make the case rather than ceding the terms of debate beforehand because all those other people supposedly will think it’s a ?
Because we don’t live in that better world. I wish I were as optimistic as you are that we could make this thing fly. Unfortunately, I’m not. When you combine (a) a pro-Right bias in maybe 40% of the electorate; and (b) a very large number of low-information voters who are easily swayed by rhetoric, however false; and (c) the 20-30% in the middle who are turned off by anything that looks like a partisan battle (even though it might not be); and (d) the near-complete abdication by the press of their role as watchdogs — I just don’t see much reason to believe that this will play out as you hope.
If more people paid attention, or more people cared deeply about constitutional rights and clean government (as they should), or fewer people were disposed to believe anything the Republicans say (however absurd), maybe we could push impeachment and it would do some good. But frankly, I’m concerned that a strong effort in this direction would result in widespread disaffection and an erosion of Democratic majorities in the Congress — maybe even a return to Republican majorities. Now that would be a disaster, given the problems we face. I see absolutely no evidence that the Republicans are seriously interested in solving either health care or energy.
You are very persuasive, but you haven’t yet convinced me. I don’t think we’re close enough to a progressive majority to pursue impeachment without serious blowback. My argument is that we first need to grow support for the left by pursuing progressive policies that make people’s lives visibly better. Yes, I know that clean, constitutional government makes people’s lives better too — but it’s not as visible to people who aren’t paying attention. If we can improve health care access and provide jobs while reducing energy dependence, that will get the attention of people in the middle. Then perhaps we can use their support to strengthen constitutional protections.
Sorry to be so cynical about what the American people will support, but that’s just the way I see it.
It seems worth noting that the evil Iranians can apparently manage to consider an impeachment.
The people are not crying out for progressivism and it is hubris of the worst kind to think otherwise.
No worries, mckinney. The American people are in no danger whatsoever of having progressivism foisted upon them.
They’re going to get McCain or Obama. Obama may be somebody’s idea of a “progressive”, but he’s my idea of Eisenhower reincarnated as a skinny black man.
And I ain’t complaining.
But the question on the table is not progressivism, it is whether it is good, or wise, or worthwhile to pursue articles of impeachment and/or other investigations of criminal activity on the part of the Bush administration.
Those two things are not the same.
As far as what the mass of Americans will or won’t tolerate, I just do not give a good god damn anymore.
If you voted for Bush, you owe me, big time. And not just me. You aided and abetted a criminal administration. So it’s time for you to stand down and get out of the way.
That’s my point of view.
Plus, what are Bush’s positives now? 23%? What do you think the popular level of support is for Cheney, or Gonzales?
You can have Bush. Send him back to Crawford, name a little league ball field after him, give him his pension, and let him ride around town in a float on the fourth of July. Mazel tov.
Bring impeachment and criminal charges against Gonzales and his staff, and Cheney and his staff, and just let it roll up from there.
Seriously, who is going to go to the mat for either Cheney or Gonzales? I bet you wouldn’t find 10 people in greater McKinney who would even care.
It seems worth noting that the evil Iranians can apparently manage to consider an impeachment.
For dishonesty. Imagine that, if you can.
Thanks –
Marshall: My argument is that we first need to grow support for the left by pursuing progressive policies that make people’s lives visibly better.
And how do you plan on doing that when, in 2012, the Nixon/Reagan/BushI&II criminal crew are back in power again?
Seriously. You keep saying that you don’t think impeachment is going to help and in fact there’s going to be blowback.
So, please, explain: what’s your plan for pursuing liberal policies when the same crew are back in charge? If you’re unwilling to pursue the legal course to ensure that doesn’t happen, what is your plan for dealing with them when they’re in power?
Nell: OT: I really, really don’t care for paged comments.
OT: I really ****ing hate them.
Jes,
Why do you believe that Republicans will be back in power in 2012 in the absence of impeachment? Perhaps you’ve explained this elsewhere and I missed it, but I don’t understand your sense of inevitability here.
I do worry about stolen elections, and that’s why I support Hartmut’s proposal about an investigation into election irregularities, but I don’t see the connection between lack of impeachment and the Republicans regaining power. I thought it was more about creating disincentives to further abuses when they are in power.
I hate paged comments too. If this was supposed to be a “feature,” it should have been optional.
Why do you believe that Republicans will be back in power in 2012 in the absence of impeachment?
No, no, that’s not the question you should be asking.
If it’s possible Obama can win a first term, it’s possible he can win a second term.
But you are the one who is arguing, strongly, that it’s counterproductive to do anything to ensure that the current criminal crew can’t ever get back into power again. And past experience says that if not impeached, they will be back in power again, come 2012 or at latest 2016. So, please, explain: what’s your plan for pursuing liberal policies when the same crew are back in charge? If you’re unwilling to pursue the legal course to ensure that doesn’t happen, what is your plan for dealing with them when they’re in power?
(If your plan is simply “oh I’m sure that won’t happen”, can I have a pony, too, please?)
Random thought on Franken’s idea of bipartisan impeachment.
If the bone thrown to the Republicans is some committee chairmanships, why couldn’t one of the chairs be the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee? Give it to say, Susan Collins, the ranking Republican.
Just saying.
Personally, I’d love to see Obama appoint a genuinely impartial prosecutor to go over the Bush administration’s record and, if necessary, bring charges. It should be someone who is genuiely committed to the rule of law, and genuinely apolitical, and widely respected.
I think Patrick Fitzgerald would be marvelous.
My question to you, and cleek, and others who believe that any such effort will be seen as a partisan witchhunt: Do you believe it’s a partisan witchhunt?
i don’t.
If you don’t, then why not help make the case rather than ceding the terms of debate beforehand because all those other people supposedly will think it’s a ?
i don’t think i have any influence here. nobody’s going to look to me to see if i’ve ceded anything. i’m barely a blogger. and blog commentators don’t even rate a sneer from politicians these days.
as for the rest: Marshall has already said, and said better, everything i would’ve said.
nonetheless…
i don’t think the public is up for it. i don’t think the Dems have the votes or the stomach for it. and, most importantly, i don’t think Obama is interested – he didn’t run on it; he doesn’t talk about it. that’s not what he’s about. he is not that guy.
i do understand the point that deliberately letting things like this go unpunished sets a bad precedent and does nothing to turn back the policies. so, i’m hoping that Obama will find another way to turn back or repudiate those policies.
and i’m not going to complain if he doesn’t. right now, i’m not interested in the circular firing squad. i’m content to let Obama run things as he wants. he’s shown amazing skill and outstanding character (for a politician) so far.
how about we see what he’s up to before we start trying to bring him down?
But you are the one who is arguing, strongly, that it’s counterproductive to do anything to ensure that the current criminal crew can’t ever get back into power again.
I don’t recall saying anything of the kind. In my view, impeachment speaks to what they do when they are in power. On those grounds, there are some good reasons to pursue it. I don’t see how impeachment is connected to their regaining power.
I absolutely believe that we should work hard to keep those people out of power. I think we just disagree about the best way to do it. I think that implementing positive change is more likely to work than prosecuting the Bush gang. We disagree about means, not ends.
Let me repeat: I am not advocating doing nothing to keep the thugs out of power. I’m advocating that we help Obama implement his agenda! He’s going to need lots of support from us (calling our congresspeople, etc), because we have a very tough road ahead.
The best way to win and keep the support of people is to do something useful that touches their daily lives. If Obama can do that, he will have an excellent chance of being re-elected, and his successor will be in good shape as well.
One of my biggest fears is that it won’t matter what Obama tries to do, because the economic meltdown will be so severe that there won’t be time to turn things around before the next election. In that event, many people might vote Republican out of sheer frustration. A lot will depend on the kind of leadership Obama exercises, and whether he can get people to work together through the tough times, rather than pointing fingers at each other.
Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. He hasn’t won the election yet. Let’s worry about that first.
I don’t recall saying anything of the kind.
That’s what impeachment is for: which has been explained to you upthread, if you were not already aware of it. (I admit with the pagination thing it’s harder to read a whole thread.)
I absolutely believe that we should work hard to keep those people out of power. I think we just disagree about the best way to do it.
Well, the only way to make sure that the individuals involved do not get back in power again is to have them impeached. We know this from experience.
I think that implementing positive change is more likely to work than prosecuting the Bush gang.
And I want to know, again, how you plan to implement positive change when the old gang are back in power. Given that you do not want to prevent them from getting back in power by having them impeached, or punish them for the things they did when they were in power, or even to have a criminal investigation exposing what they did in power. You keep handwaving that Obama’s job is somehow to ensure that no one is ever elected again who will just re-appoint these scumbags to the positions of power that they have held, that you want them still to have the legal right to hold – how is Obama supposed to accomplish this, exactly? I mean apart from just “I hope it’ll work that way”?
Of course, I’m getting ahead of myself. He hasn’t won the election yet.
True. And I seem to recall you’re also against his reforming the electoral system once in power so that future Democratic presidents won’t have to win by a landslide against Republican vote-rigging. I hope Obama can achieve that landslide: and I hope he uses that window of opportunity to reform US elections to make them free and fair. But it’s going to be a close thing…
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If the whole junta is not put into a Dutch dungeon for good or gets punched its oneway ticket downstairs, they’ll be back soon in person as early as 2010 in Congress and 2012 in the WH. No domestic prison term will stop them, as experience shows.
If this is done it may take a little while longer before the next generation of well-connected RW loonies runs the shop again. To get rid of them completely I consider an impossible task.
I am still all for boiling Rush and Grover in oil and dissolving teh Coulter in vitriol. Put their backs against the wall and pop! go the weasels!
Again my prediction: Obama will not be reelected because he will be dead.
My hope (probably vain): the GOP will split into the Moderate Party and the Palin Patriotic Party.
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” It should be non- or bipartisan**.”
Heh. Good luck with that. The opposition damned well will be bipartisan. And consist chiefly of incumbent office holders.
The thing you always have to remember about election fraud is that it’s easier to pull off in your own territory; Republicans can do it a lot easier in Republican dominated areas, Democrats a lot easier in Democrat dominated areas. So, whatever the 2nd order effects on partisan balance, the primary effect of ballot fraud is to make incumbents of both parties more secure.
They got elected under the current, screwed up system. They know that, to the extent fraud is happening, it didn’t hurt THEM, and maybe helped. Why on God’s green Earth would they want to clean the system up, and maybe help the next guy who tries to unseat them?
“So, whatever the 2nd order effects on partisan balance, the primary effect of ballot fraud is to make incumbents of both parties more secure.”
Brett, why is it that the Bush administration, despite going to the effort of firing various of their own Republican U.S. attorneys for not finding voter fraud, haven’t been able to find any remotely significant cases of voter fraud?
Lack of interest?
ditto on the paged comments.
though they wouldn’t be as bad if the “RECENT COMMENTS” links on the sidebar were aware of the pagination. since they’re not, those links are now nearly useless.
so, i’m hoping that Obama will find another way to turn back or repudiate those policies.
There are a number of things that can be done short of trying to prosecute Bush et. al. First, he can release all the various torture memoranda that have been so far kept under lock and key. He can conduct a full scale investigation of what’s been going on with respect to torture, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons, etc., and release an unredacted copy of the results. He can withdraw all claims of executive privilege with respect to the testimony of Bush administration officials, clearing the way for them to testify in front of congress. If they refuse, he can prosecute them for ignoring congressional subpoenas.
Further, if Bush were to issue blanket pardons in his last days in office, the people who receive them could no longer claim the 5th amendment if they were to be, e.g., called to testify before congress.
And I seem to recall you’re also against his reforming the electoral system once in power so that future Democratic presidents won’t have to win by a landslide against Republican vote-rigging.
Jes,
Wow. For some reason I can’t fathom, you seem to be angry at me, and this seems to be interfering with your ability to read what I’ve written. I said explicitly, more than once, exactly the opposite of what you wrote there.
Anyway, I’ve said my piece, and I can’t think of anything useful to add. We’re getting into dead horse territory now.
Wow. For some reason I can’t fathom, you seem to be angry at me
I am not angry with you.
I am in a stinking, steaming, festering, sulphurous, flaming rage because so many Americans are so supinely accepting of the criminal behavior of their executive over the past 8 years, when they ought to be bloody well champing at the bit to see the bastards at the very least formally banned from ever taking office again. So when you argue that you don’t feel that it’s worthwhile trying to get them banned from taking office again, you do get the overspill of that festering wave of rage.
Which is a tiny, minute, little spill of rage compared to the tsunami of rage that fills me when I think of the crimes against humanity and breaches of international law for which Bush and his crew ought to be extradited to the Hague, put on trial, and sentenced to the maximum penalty the law affords – but for which they will certainly escape any penalty by avoiding travel outside the US, because if Americans are supine when their rulers commit crimes against them, they are largely indifferent to crimes committed by their rulers against others.
I said explicitly, more than once, exactly the opposite of what you wrote there
Where exactly did you say that you wanted Bush & Co impeached? I thought you were arguing against that, and if I misread that, indeed we have been arguing at cross-purposes.
We’re getting into dead horse territory now.
Dead pony, please.
cleek: i don’t think the public is up for it. i don’t think the Dems have the votes or the stomach for it. and, most importantly, i don’t think Obama is interested – he didn’t run on it; he doesn’t talk about it. that’s not what he’s about. he is not that guy.
…
how about we see what he’s up to before we start trying to bring him down?
Who’s trying to bring him down?
Obama’s lack of interest has almost nothing to do with it. The president, and the executive branch generally, has exactly no role in impeachment. It’s a Congressional prerogative.
Some people might be content with a president-as-emperor system as long as s/he’s a wise and beneficent emperor. I’m not. It’s not what this country was supposed to be.
And there need be absolutely nothing about the situation that makes it a “circular firing squad”. Investigative impeachment hearings can, as I said in a previous comment, go on accumulating evidence for quite some time while the health care and other work takes center stage — the work that Obama and the vast majority of those who voted for him are interested in.
There’s no requirement, and indeed no real benefit, to make it the main show. Post-office impeachment isn’t about bringing anyone down; it’s about determining the extent of the damage to the rule of law so it can be repaired and prevented from happening again.
A President Obama could assist materially in the process of exposing what went on in the previous administration by releasing documents, and in reassuring the public that such crimes will not continue in his administration (repealing dictatorial Bush executive orders, stating his administration’s policy, promoting legislation to roll back the legalization of torture and domestic spying).
But none of that, necessary as it will be, is a substitute for real accountability.
Jes,
I said above (agreeing with Hartmut) that we should launch a bipartisan investigation into election irregularities, with an eye towards making it much more difficult to rig or steal an election. I’m hoping that Obama has enough of a lead to overcome the irregularities, but I worry about it every day. This is definitely something we need to fix. As I said upthread, it’s absurd that we can’t have fair and transparent elections today. There is no excuse for the election process being so politicized or so open to manipulation.
As I understand it, impeachment has to do with breaking the law while in office — not with election irregularities. Please don’t interpret my position on impeachment as complacency about the crimes of Bush & Co. Torture is wrong. Period. Violation of civil liberties is wrong. Period. It’s disgusting that our politicians have promoted these activities. If there is some way to prosecute them in the courts, rather than in Congress, I’m all for it. I just don’t want to see the process politicized. But I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know what can be done outside the political realm.
You are right that Americans shouldn’t be in supine acceptance of these abuses. (And again, I hope you don’t think I’m one of those Americans.) Unfortunately, the political reality is that many Americans just don’t care — or they even approve. We need to do something about this, absolutely. I’m hoping that Obama will show leadership in this area. I’m just not convinced that impeachment is the right way to fight this battle. We live in an extremely polarized nation, and the chances are very high that this will be perceived as a merely partisan battle if it is fought in the political realm. It is not partisan, and we don’t want it to be perceived this way. (For the lawyers out there, I’m curious if there is any reason that this can’t be prosecuted in the courts.)
Bush can’t run again. I think the chances are low that Cheney, Rumsfeld, or Gonzales would run in four years. Rice has said she has no intention of running for office. Impeachment would be more about setting an example for future office holders than about keeping that particular crew out of the White House. But I would really like to see a different, non-political way to send that message, if possible.
And again: we definitely need to reform the election process.
As I understand it, impeachment has to do with breaking the law while in office — not with election irregularities.
I’m sorry, clearly I wasn’t quite as clear as I thought.
I believe that Republicans rigged the elections because they have learned, from Americans just like you, that they will never suffer any serious legal penalty for criminal behavior. Whether or not Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the administration were sufficiently involved in the various electoral shenanigants to be impeached is something that an independent investigation ought to discover (not a “bipartisan” one: a non-party one). But given the unprecedented firing of so many US Attorneys because they were too impartial with regard to Republican electoral fraud and/or too reluctant to proceed against Democratic politicians where there was no evidence, I would be surprised if this too didn’t reach into the Bush White House. But there are many other potential grounds for impeachment.
Impeachment would be more about setting an example for future office holders than about keeping that particular crew out of the White House.
It would be both. Your belief that you can trust them absolutely when they say they won’t accept office again…? Well, yes, I do see that as part of the problem.
You are right that Americans shouldn’t be in supine acceptance of these abuses. (And again, I hope you don’t think I’m one of those Americans.)
Well, yes, I do: what else can I think? You don’t want them prosecuted or even investigated. What is this but lying supine and hoping for a magic pony?
Sigh.
Just to explain my deep sigh:
Marshall: “If there is some way to prosecute them in the courts, rather than in Congress, I’m all for it.”
Jesurgislac: “You don’t want them prosecuted or even investigated.”
And you claim not to be angry at me. Sorry, but your emotions are getting in the way of objectivity and fairness.
Anyway, time to move on. This little spat is accomplishing nothing.
Marshall: “If there is some way to prosecute them in the courts, rather than in Congress, I’m all for it.”
Jesurgislac: “You don’t want them prosecuted or even investigated.”
Me: *facepalm*
Hilzoy writes, “Personally, I’d love to see Obama appoint a genuinely impartial prosecutor to go over the Bush administration’s record and, if necessary, bring charges. It should be someone who is genuiely committed to the rule of law, and genuinely apolitical, and widely respected.”
There are several problems with this approach. First, it’s more likely than not that nothing indictable would come out of it–sorry to all you true-believers out there, but the nexus of criminal conduct, and more specifically criminal intent, and national security and the defensive doctrines of justification and necessity make specific indictable offenses tough to get. Second, there is no way in hell it wouldn’t appear partisan. Third, fair questions would be raised about the Clinton administration’s fund raising problems and, why, people would ask, is the investigation limited to just republicans? Fourth, it’s a really bad precedent to have incoming administrations investigating outgoing administrations. Which would produce reason No. 5: outgoing presidents would routinely pardon everyone in their administration as a prophylactic measure.
But like I said earlier, have at it. If there was ever anything that could make Obama and his party look small and vindictive, it would be gunning for lamest lame duck in American history. Talking about shooting fish in barrel with a shotgun.
Everything in mckinneytexas’ comment, except for the ridiculous bit of Clinton misdirection, is an argument for using impeachment investigative hearings and proceedings for handling the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush-Cheney administration.
The Obama administration wouldn’t be involved, pre-emptive presidential pardons wouldn’t have any effect, courts’ stringent requirements to prove intent wouldn’t be necessary, and even if there were a lot of shrieking about partisanship at the beginning, I’m confident that the record of the clique’s lawbreaking, once revealed, would marginalize the shriekers. It would set no untoward, precedents, either.
We should be far more concerned about the precedent set by the 110th Congress, which failed pursue seriously any effort at accountability for torture, domestic spying, using “signing statements” to fail to execute the laws, and lying to promote an illegal war of aggression — and only in the slowest and most accommodating manner investigated politicization of the Justice Department and war profiteering.
mckinney, fair points but you’re treating this as business as usual. We don’t think it is, and we don’t want the kinds of abuses we saw to stay the norm. Therefore, it’s time to cash in some chits and take some chances.
it’s more likely than not that nothing indictable would come out of it…the nexus of …criminal intent, and national security and the defensive doctrines of justification and necessity make specific indictable offenses tough to get.
Meh. If they could get Libby despite WH obstructionism, they can get a lot more once we have decent access to records. An amicus brief by the new AG, WH Counsel, and HS Secretary stating that national security was not at issue would also go a long way.
Second, there is no way in hell it wouldn’t appear partisan.
Horrors.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, that any Democrat can do will ever not appear partisan, to partisans. Non-zealots, however, may eventually notice that a lot of dirt is turning up. In short, that’s a PR question. If our PR people can’t make hay out of lawbreaking, fire them and find new PR staff.
fair questions would be raised about the Clinton administration’s fund raising problems and, why, people would ask, is the investigation limited to just republicans?
Ummm, because the Republican Congress, undeterred by such considerations, already investigated those problems and decided not to add any related claims to the bill of impeachment?
Or is that too reasonable an answer?
You’re right about #5 — this is a one-trip ticket. But it seems like a good time to use it up. If we never use it because it can’t be used again, we might as well not have it at all. Let some future Congress amend the Constitution to limit the pardoning power in response to future abuses.
In short, these are reasons against any action, ever. And they’re strong enough reasons to have stopped post-facto impeachment until now — with the unfortunate results noted by Jesurgislac, nell, and cleek. Enough.
Jes, I can’t imagine where you think you’re going to find a “non-party” investigation. Bipartisan is about the best we have ever managed. Finding a pi$$ed-off Republican prosecutor, maybe one of the JAGs who refused to proceed with the Gitmo show trials, might be the best answer here.
with the unfortunate results noted by Jesurgislac, nell, and cleek.
I think you meant Anarch or Russell, Crafty One. Cleek’s willing to live with the unfortunate results if accountability efforts don’t suit our wise and steady imperial president.
Jes, I can’t imagine where you think you’re going to find a “non-party” investigation.
Hire a British civil servant *she says irascibly*
“Bipartisan” to me suggests you put equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats on the committee.
Independent/non-party to me says you get someone whose job it is to investigate, and whose professional integrity requires them to investigate without party bias. If the United States has no one of that degree of professional integrity who can investigate, well, then you need someone from a country where the Civil Service retains a tradition of acting without party bias.