Grounds to Impeach a Republican President
What does it take to impeach this president? Lying us into a war--Iraq-- won't do it! Trying to lie us into a war--Iran--won't do it! Torturing prisoners won't do it! Spying on citizens won't do it! Lying about Valerie Plame won't do it! Ignoring the constitution won't do it!
His daddy and Saint Ronnie didn't get impeached for sending Ollie North to smuggle cocaine into the US to support the proxy war against the elected government of Nicaragua or for selling weapons to Iran.
If we are to judge by the history of presidential impeachment, it is a political tool Republican congressional majorities use against Democratic presidents. On May 26, 1868, a Republican senate failed by one vote to impeach Andrew Johnson, a process that was characterized even by Republican Senator Charles Sumner as "political in character." Johnson was impeached for testing a law specifically passed by Congress to prevent him dismissing officeholders without Senate approval, a law partially repealed in 1887 and found unconstitutional in 1926.
The impeachment of Bill Clinton evidently centered entirely on lying about sex after having been carefully entrapped by the Starr definition of "sexual relations." Both the vote in the House and the vote in the Senate were along party lines, except that in the senate-- five in one case and ten in the other--Republican senators voted with the Democrats to acquit.
This is a either a question about whether Democrats respect the Constitution and rule of law more than Republicans or whether they're jsut a bunch of sissies. Tonight I lean more toward the latter.
His daddy and Saint Ronnie didn't get impeached for sending Ollie North to smuggle cocaine into the US to support the proxy war against the elected government of Nicaragua or for selling weapons to Iran.
If we are to judge by the history of presidential impeachment, it is a political tool Republican congressional majorities use against Democratic presidents. On May 26, 1868, a Republican senate failed by one vote to impeach Andrew Johnson, a process that was characterized even by Republican Senator Charles Sumner as "political in character." Johnson was impeached for testing a law specifically passed by Congress to prevent him dismissing officeholders without Senate approval, a law partially repealed in 1887 and found unconstitutional in 1926.
The impeachment of Bill Clinton evidently centered entirely on lying about sex after having been carefully entrapped by the Starr definition of "sexual relations." Both the vote in the House and the vote in the Senate were along party lines, except that in the senate-- five in one case and ten in the other--Republican senators voted with the Democrats to acquit.
This is a either a question about whether Democrats respect the Constitution and rule of law more than Republicans or whether they're jsut a bunch of sissies. Tonight I lean more toward the latter.
posted by Ed at
10:10 PM
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