Bill Moyers Journal - Impeachment

[SDMomChef]

Before I post, I want to make clear that (a) I voted for W. in 2000, (b) I am a registered Democrat, (c) I voted for Kerry in 2004 and (d) I strongly disagree with many of W.'s policies. But, what really has made me the most upset over the last 4 years is the complete lack of oversight of Congress - it feels like our system has no "checks" on W.'s actions. I am absolutely flabbergasted that Bush has refused to enforce or enact laws for bills that he signed into law (for example, here is an excerpt from the NY Times on July 22nd: The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires...In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions)

Now, Bush is claiming that executive privilege extends to permitting him to tell a witness not to even appear before Congress. I *hated* constitutional law in law school because there were so many shades of gray and I tend to like more black/white. But, I do remember that one thing with privilege is that it is not a blanket privilege like Bush is claiming - Congress is free to ask Harriet Meyers to state her name, position, etc. even if parts of her testimony were to fall within the executive privilege. AND, whether it is even subject to the executive privilege is not automatic - it is a balance between the public's right to know and the interests of the President in maintaining confidentiality of the information. Bush is not the one to decide that issue - it is a question for a judge.

Sorry for the rambling, but this does concern me - I like a system of checks and balances, and I honestly have gotten to the point where I think it is BAD for our nation to have both the congress/senate/president to be from the same party. And, that is sad to me - especially when I read any biographies of our founding fathers.

So, I was surprised by the topic of the PBS Bill Moyers show last Friday was impeachment. I was even more surprised that one of his guests was Bruce Fein who wrote the Articles of Impeachment against Clinton. I nearly fell off my chair when his opinion/viewpoint was that Bush/Cheney have committed worse offenses than Clinton and Impeachment proceedings should begin - primarily to stop the erosion of our constitution and the expansion of the executives rights. His opinion so mimicked mine - it is not just a matter of politics, recognizing that I do have a bias - it is a matter of what I think is our constitution. I am very disheartened that we do not have any true statesmen in Washington to take their responsibilities seriously and leave the politics behind. For those of you who are interested, here is a link to the transcript from the show:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/transcript2.html

[JenniferJJ]

I don't understand the purpose of your post. 1)Don't the Democrats currently control both the House and the Senate? 2)Even when the House/Senate and President are from the same party, it is the American people who voted that way.

I really am surprised that the Democrats did not make it a priority to get Bush impeached when they were elected in November.

If you feel strongly that Bush should be impeached, you should be in communication with your representative and senator.

[SDMomChef]

Sorry - there probably wasn't any real purpose to my post. I had just watched the video and was amazed that the discussion could take place outside the hyper-politics of today - you say impeachment only because you hate W. and want to do it as pay-back. And, I guess I am sad that I have zero faith in either party to act like leaders and that I don't hear the dialogue that was on that show very often so thought I would share.

[funniegrrl]

I really am surprised that the Democrats did not make it a priority to get Bush impeached when they were elected in November.

In an effort to have an effective, collaborative Congress, Nancy Pelosi stated at the beginning of her Speakership that she would not encourage discussion of impeachment, fearing that it would prevent them from doing any other work and further the divide between the parties.

I am stunned at the way the nation -- not just Congress -- but the citizenry at large, has rolled over and played dead and let Cheney/Bush/Rove do whatever the hell they want. This will go down as, bar none, the worst presidency in the history of the nation. They are not only doing things they should not, but are erroding the very foundations of this country in the name of personal power and factional party agendas. The errosion of our personal and constitutional rights is unprecidented. This administration considers the Bill of Rights so much toilet paper, and it seems that the Constitution itself is a roll of paper towels, at best.

The list of transgressions by the admininstration -- moral if not legal -- grows every single day. The attorney general, the throttling of the surgeon general are just two recent examples. Bush is one of the narrow-minded conservative zealots who put religious ideology above science. It is this atmosphere that allows misinformation about sex, reproduction, and birth control to be handed out with the stamp of authority. It is this atmosphere that allows the Kentucky museum which touts creationism as scientific fact to florish. On the other hand, these reactionary officials have no problem with starting an unjust war, with torturing people on the thinnest of suspicions, of lying and spinning at every conceivable opportunity.

Impeachment is the least that should be done. I don't know if the VP can be impeached, but Chaney is the architect of much of this, the brains behind the throne, and he should be tossed out on his ear.

Even in his worst moments, Nixon usually acted in the best interests of the country when it came to international relations, foreign policy, and social policy. The shenanigans of the last 6 years makes ya kinda miss the ol' rat.

[blazedog]

In an effort to have an effective, collaborative Congress, Nancy Pelosi stated at the beginning of her Speakership that she would not encourage discussion of impeachment, fearing that it would prevent them from doing any other work and further the divide between the parties.

I am stunned at the way the nation -- not just Congress -- but the citizenry at large, has rolled over and played dead and let Cheney/Bush/Rove do whatever the hell they want. This will go down as, bar none, the worst presidency in the history of the nation. They are not only doing things they should not, but are erroding the very foundations of this country in the name of personal power and factional party agendas. The errosion of our personal and constitutional rights is unprecidented. This administration considers the Bill of Rights so much toilet paper, and it seems that the Constitution itself is a roll of paper towels, at best.

The list of transgressions by the admininstration -- moral if not legal -- grows every single day. The attorney general, the throttling of the surgeon general are just two recent examples. Bush is one of the narrow-minded conservative zealots who put religious ideology above science. It is this atmosphere that allows misinformation about sex, reproduction, and birth control to be handed out with the stamp of authority. It is this atmosphere that allows the Kentucky museum which touts creationism as scientific fact to florish. On the other hand, these reactionary officials have no problem with starting an unjust war, with torturing people on the thinnest of suspicions, of lying and spinning at every conceivable opportunity.

Impeachment is the least that should be done. I don't know if the VP can be impeached, but Chaney is the architect of much of this, the brains behind the throne, and he should be tossed out on his ear.

Even in his worst moments, Nixon usually acted in the best interests of the country when it came to international relations, foreign policy, and social policy. The shenanigans of the last 6 years makes ya kinda miss the ol' rat.

I don't know how the country and the world is going to be able to recover this disaster -- between the corruption, the trampling of civil liberties, the foreign "policy" that has only succeeded in making the world less safe and perilously less stable.

But then I also remember the 6 years between his election in 1968 and the fall of Saigon -- the invasion of Cambodia which led directly to the killing fields and Kissinger is STILL around with any degree of foreign policy credibility whispering inprecation in the ears of th neo-cons. Of course the irony is that Vietnam was NOT a strategic area, despite the idiotic domino theory, while the Middle East is.

Every morning I read the newspaper and think how much worse can it get -- in today's New York Times front page I bounced from the revelations of the lobbying scandal which make the Teapot Dome scandal chicken feed in comparison; the revelation that the Saudis are active in undermining US interests (or what theoretically passes for them) in Iraq and the continuing shame of Gonzales -- still backed by his good buddy.

Oh yes in all of this, the White House found the time to require a more stringent visitors' dress code than the Vatican.