and another thing

[topaz]

This is at least partly related to spending the evening watching a Michael Moore movie, but I am so fucking angry about the Scooter Libby business I can't see straight.  Holy hell am I mad.  I could just about eat a battleship and shit staples.

I think one of the things that's most infuriating is that we have such a gutless, spineless, Democratic leadership in Congress, it's practically guaranteed that nothing is going to happen.  Pelosi's chair was barely warm before she announced that impeachment was off the table.  (The Huffington Post is urging you to make her put it back on the table.  That number is 202-225-0100, folks.  And MoveOn has one of their endless petitions in play to support impeachment, if you like signing MoveOn petitions.)

Our House rep, Marty Meehan, is vacating his seat this fall and it's up for grabs.  The first candidate who says they support impeaching this motherfucker will get my vote.  For that matter, they may well get me to quit my job and go to work on their campaign.

Comments

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I think Bush (and Cheney) should be impeached and removed from office, but the Scooter Libby affair isn't going to be the thing that hangs them. (People's anger on this kind of baffles me: Libby wasn't charged with leaking Valerie Plame's name, and what he was charged with, well, if you didn't learn the term perjury trap when Bill Clinton was impeached, read over this (http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1169&context=lawfaculty) and then look at the things Libby was actually charged with and tell me what you think.


However, there is something Bush and Cheney could be impeached on, which I don't think they'll be able to defend themselves from: not hitting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's HQ (http://www.slate.com/id/2108880/) in 2003. We had Colin Powell going in front of the world, mentioning someone who was already a big concern, showing that we knew where his HQ was, and then we didn't attack it for over 50 days!

The best face you can put on this is massive incompetence. The worst face, and the one I think is most credible, is that they decided not to hit Zarqawi because that would have undermined the case for invading Iraq.

Zarqawi was long gone by the time the attack on the place Powell mentioned happened, and he went on to be a major factor in the Iraqi horror show, laying out a master plan (http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2004/03/strategic_insig.html) that has mostly been achieved. He was responsible for thousands of deaths, was almost certainly the guy who murdered Nick Berg, and it took a lot of time and money to hunt him down.

Now, it wasn't certain that he would have been killed if his hangout was raided, but the way they waited still makes my blood boil, and the thought that they probably delayed for BS reasons makes me wish that an impeachment trial could give life sentences, to be served in Abu Ghraib.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to carry on this discussion in two journals at once, so suffice it to say here that I think you have radically misunderstood the meaning of "perjury trap."

I'm also sort of dumbfounded that you think systematically interfering with a legal investigation and attempting to circumvent the checks and balances on the executive system are not impeachable offenses, but that waging a war on foreign soil in an incompetent manner is. I think this points up your personal obsession with foreign policy more than anything else.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

I don't think they waged war in an incompetent manner. That by itself, while bad, doesn't strike me as impeachable.

What I think they did was decided that going after Zarqawi would undermine the case for invading Iraq, so they left him alone, which meant, when they discussed Khurmal in public, he had a lot of advance warning and skedaddled.

You're missing another obsession of mine: the way prosecutors abuse their powers. I think it's bad that people can be indicted for "lying to federal officials," for instance, especially since if there isn't a recording of the conversation, the federal officials are always assumed to be telling the truth, and "lying" is construed very broadly (http://library.findlaw.com/2004/May/11/147945.html). I think the way modern grand juries are run, especially when they are used to come up with things to charge people with, is wrong. (This is why I agree with the people who want grand juries abolished (http://www.nacdl.org/public.nsf/freeform/grandjuryreform?opendocument).)

I've also read the supposedly damning bits in Libby's testimony, and it looks to me like he got confused about dates of when he talked the subject with Cheney, and Fitzgerald decided that was deliberate. I think it's entirely possible for a smart person to forget details, and get flustered, especially in front of a grand jury, where you can't consult with your attorney or, often, your notes on the matter. I know I personally would have a hard time in that situation.

While I want Bush to be removed, I'm not all that enthused by a case against one of his subordinates that, to my non-lawyer mind, looks an awful lot like it could have been mounted against anyone testifying, if the prosecutor had decided mistakes in their testimony were lies.

I mean, really, what has been the end result of this investigation? We've found that the leak was accidental, one man was indicted on charges that prosecutors generally bring when they can't think of anything else and want to make a failed investigation look fruitful, and two reporters were slung in jail until they squealed, and when they did talk, we didn't find out anything pertinent to what the investigation was supposed to be about in the first place.

It's made me reconsider my opinion on Fitzgerald quite a bit. I still think he's probably one of the best prosecutors around, but I now think he's got a bit of Inspector Javert in him.

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

I mean, really, what has been the end result of this investigation?

We learned that many high government officials associated with the office of the vice president -- including Scooter Libby -- tried on many occasions to identify Valerie Plame to at least four different reporters. We learned that the office of the vice-president was extremely concerned with Joseph Wilson from the time of Paul Krugman's initial column about his claims, which he later made explicit in his own op-ed. We basically got a whole lot of testimony that pretty directly points to Dick Cheney as the original source of the publicizing of Valerie Plame's name as a CIA operative, among the people who then passed that information along although not specifically for the purpose of blowing her cover. All of these are things that had been explicitly and constantly denied by the administration and its minions.

We also learned, in related Congressional testimony, that the White House itself, despite its public statements, never made any attempt of its own to investigate this incident. You seem to be saying that there really was no need to investigate this incident at all. The CIA disagrees.

In short: The CIA wanted to know where the trail led -- they already knew that Dick Armitage was one of Novak's two sources, but why had the status of a covert agent been so bandied about that this knowledge became common in this circle, among individuals who had no authority to know this? The investigation did answer this, but not to the extent that would support a likely conviction. Had Scooter Libby not lied about how this whole chain of information and disinformation came about, there might have been a legally supportable response here.

You don't think that Libby's lies were deliberate -- or even that they were lies. And yet a jury deliberating the testimony found sufficient reason to believe that the nature of Libby's testimony was not credible when considered in conjunction with the other testimony. Also, it's not just the dates at issue here -- it's where he first learned of Valerie Plame, which, given his participation in the publicizing of her name, is a big deal and not the sort of thing he'd be likely to not just forget but to misremember. The judge agreed with the jury. I find your contention that Libby simply got flustered in the presence of a grand jury to be ludicrous and inconsistent with not just everything we know about Scooter Libby and his legal background but with the circumstances surrounding the events about which he testified.

Fitzgerald was tasked with finding out how the name of a covert agent reached the point where administration officials were dropping this tidbit into the inboxes of several reporaters -- and whether that in itself was a crime, according to the relevant statutes. Reporter testimony was key to this. He got pretty far -- he got far enough that anybody willing to look at the testimony now has a much clearer idea of how this all came about.

The issue for me -- and this is completely just one of those "sense of" things -- is that I really don't think the point of leaking Valerie Plame's name was specifically to out her as a covert agent. That would make no sense to me. Her covert status got lost in the shuffle -- it seems through what you might even describe as carelessness on the part of the Vice President and probably others, who weren't protective of information that should have known to protect. But that, apparently, is not illegal, without the specific intention of revealing her status.

[sine.livejournal.com]

iirc, perjury trap is when you put someone under oath and ask embarrassing questions about irrelevant, legal activities (do you pick your nose? do you cheat on your wife?), stuff people often do but are ashamed to admit to. it doesn't involve asking someone questions about possible illegal behavior, does it?

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

We like Jamie Eldridge for Marty-boy's seat. He's our state rep, and a pretty good guy for a politician. If anybody in this race full of hacks will show some spine, he will.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

Huh — never heard of him! We're getting deluged with literature from Eileen Donoghue, Barry Finegold and Niki Tsongas, but nobody else, so I figured they were the only three who'd declared.

[approximator.livejournal.com]

I think that commuting Libby's sentence was wrong. That said, I'm not sure that it is a horrible miscarriage of justice. My problem is that the when combined with the other questionable things that the administration may have done, that precedents are being set that may have a radical effect on the Justice system and the Executive Branch(in a bad way) . The secrecy, the executive orders and the political appointees in the Justice Dept.
Then when you combine those things with radically bad foreign policy and bad domestic energy policy among others, I keep thinking that someone is trying to cause the end of the world so that they can be called to their lord in heaven. I hope this is just an emotional response that will be balanced by an eventual national shift to the left. Another concern is that most of the political media is controlled by conservatives and they (conservatives) don't need control of the executive branch to shaft progressive policies. It may take a century of hard work (or longer) from progressives and bad conservative policy to achieve a truly liberal society, with justice for all. Or maybe never.
Libby is small potatoes now, he has been the lightning rod and has provided some cover. Now he'll be taken care of as we all knew he would be, with a 6-8 figure salary and the benefits of the commercial executive class. When the president leaves office, he will be pardoned (unless he gets a conscience and confesses his perfidy (relating to his duty as a civil servant not his duty to the current administration), then he won't get squat).
Well, yeah. I guess I'm pissed, too. sorry about all the parenthetical comments.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Then when you combine those things with radically bad foreign policy and bad domestic energy policy among others, I keep thinking that someone is trying to cause the end of the world so that they can be called to their lord in heaven.

They are. They're called Dominionists.

[wotw]

I am baffled by the notion of impeaching a president for exercising one of
his constitutional powers.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the executive powers enumerated in the Constitution do not include granting political favors to a convicted felon in exchange for his refusing to provide evidence against the commander in chief.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

You would be pretty wrong, then.

Morally, you are correct; legally you are wrong. If we change the law every time we are morally outraged, or every time a power is exercised in a repugnant manner, we will soon end up with the very utterly arbitrary, winner-take-all government we are supposedly angry about right now.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[qnetter]

I am opposed to impeachment, and here's why.

I believe we have a higher duty to the repair of the Constitution than to the addressing of a single set of high crimes and misdemeanors.

If two presidents in a row are impeached, despite the lack of merit in the first case and the clear merit in the second, impeachment will become a standard tactic for Congresses with a minority president. Impeachment will no longer be a trial and will be a vote of no confidence. And we will essentially become a parliamentary government.

In order to prevent this, we need to grit our teeth and move on. We need to remember what those words -- move on -- were intended to mean in the first place.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

This is one of the most interesting and thoughtful responses I've had all day.

You may be right, but I am finding it very, very hard to admit the consequences of what you are saying. It seems as though it would mean that not only is there no accountability for this president, but there is no possibility of accountability.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

You are not addressing the possibility of impeachment AND conviction.

Who is tasked with the duty of repairing the Constitution? The same assclowns who would and do abuse it. How the hell, exactly, is this going to work? And how would "moving on" at this point help?

[qnetter]

I don't address that possibility because there is no such possibility. There is no chance at all of a majority voting to impeach, or of a majority convicting on any of the charges discussed. All that would accomplish is waste the next 18 months.

As for what "moving on" would help, it would help exactly as I described it: by heading off the potential demotion of impeachment into a vote of no confidence. That is a far, far greater peril to our form of government than these specific crimes. The same standards you apply would probably have required the impeachment of FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ, as well as Nixon.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

There is indeed a possibility of it, because the mechanism exists in the Constitution. There is a very low PROBABILITY of it, one that is probably not worth measuring.

You talk about the demotion of impeachment as if it were a tangible thing, but i think you exaggerate not only about its likelihood but also in the magnitude of its effect. I feel that a bigger peril to our form of government is the way that the Bush Administration has extended the power of the Executive Branch, which i hope you're concerned about. I wonder what crimes the White House would have to commit for you to feel that impeachment would not risk self-demotion.

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I could just about eat a battleship and shit staples.


Nothing of substance to add, I just wanted to say that I love this phrase.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

I was going to put a long screed in your journal. I mostly agree with qnetter, and have a lot more to say. But it hit close to max length, and I don't want to hijack. So I posted it in my journal instead (http://docstrange.livejournal.com/39189.html).

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Dude, why not? Everybody else is hijacking and this is at least on topic. :-)

But a very interesting train of thought. I'll digest this some more.

[opadit.livejournal.com]

I'd just note that impeachment is so hard to accomplish that it's been tried only three times against presidents (Andrew Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton) and has never been successful (Johnson, impeached but acquitted; Nixon resigned after impeachment articles were passed in House Judiciary Committee but before they could reach House floor; Clinton, impeached but acquitted).

In the past, it's always been very highly partisan, and a huge problem is that "high crimes and misdemeanors" isn't defined in the Constitution (Art. II Section 4). Even in Clinton's case, there were multiple articles of impeachment, but not all of them passed.

[jordanwillow.livejournal.com]

umm, despite all of that, i just wanted to say it was nice to finally meet you in person and i'm sorry we didn't get more time to talk! hopefully our paths will cross again this summer... :)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm thrilled that I got to meet you and look forward to meeting you again.

And it's not usually this contentious around here, honest! I'm afraid you caught me on a bad day for politics stuff.

[jordanwillow.livejournal.com]

hee hee! don't worry, i suspected as much. it's the 4th of july, after all. and incidentally, i agree about scooter libby. :)

[ceo]

The problem with impeaching Bush is that you really have to impeach Cheney first, because President Cheney is the only thing that would be worse than President Bush. And Pelosi would have a rather glaring and obvious conflict of interest in pushing the impeachment of both the President and VP. (To say nothing of the fact that it amounts to a coup d'etat by the legislative branch, and there's now way the Republicans in the Senate are going to go along with it until and unless Bush and Cheney perform a "partial-birth" abortion live on national TV and eat the fetus.)

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

And Pelosi would have a rather glaring and obvious conflict of interest in pushing the impeachment of both the President and VP.

This is ridiculous. Who else should be pushing for it, then? Mr. Rogers?

A coup d'etat by the legislative branch... which is IN THE CONSTITUTION.

[sine.livejournal.com]

david swanson (http://tinyurl.com/34v5vx) pointed out:

George Mason (1725-1792), the father of the Bill of Rights (1791-2002), argued at the Constitutional Convention in favor of providing the House of Representatives the power of impeachment by pointing out that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection."

James Madison (1751-1836), the father of the U.S. Constitution (1788-2007), added that "if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty."

of course, madison would have been forimpeachment over the us attorneys thing:

The danger then consists merely in this, the president can displace from office a man whose merits require that he should be continued in it. What will be the motives which the president can feel for such abuse of his power, and the restraints that operate to prevent it? In the first place, he will be impeachable by this house, before the senate, for such an act of mal-administration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust.

he goes on to explain how such a thing wouldn't happen because the congress would impeach the president for this.

i'm really wondering what it takes to get this guy impeached. i can;t keep track of the scandals any more, and there is at least one federal law (the one that created fisa) that he has publicly admitted, more than once, to breaking. what does the congress need, skywriting?