Just Say No
Someone needs to provide Barak Obama a copy of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and make him read them. For him to say he doesn’t believe that the Shrubbery has done anything that merits impeachment when this administration has willingly, knowingly, and intentionally violated the spirit and letter of eight of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights, makes him too incompetent to be President. Only the Second and Third Amendments have survived the crime wave that is the current administration.
Melissa addresses this in Obama Opposes Impeachment. PSotD in This is the wrong answer. Steve Soto has a couple of posts starting with Obama: Impeachment Off The Table.
To make this announcement at this time means I will not be voting in the next Presidential election if Obama is the nominee. I was already concerned by some of his foreign policy statements, but this is the last straw. I’m not voting for anyone with so little regard for the Constitution.
11 comments
no.
This is more DLC-triangulation crap, and I’m not putting up with it. There is no independent center, the independents are grouped at the extremes and accepting GOP talking points is not going to cut it with me.
the damned centrists have been brokering deals with the far right for so long that they no longer recognize where the center truly lies.
on the impeachment thing though, it is a bit of a problem. can’t possibly impeach bush first, that would leave us president cheney [not that it hasn’t always been like that anyway]. and if we get cheney out of there before we get bush out of there, no telling who would get appointed as the new vp.
we should impeach them both at the same time, as one unit, but that’s an unprecedented step. plus it would leave us with president pelosi, and not even the leftmost of the present democrats can bring themselves to think of actually having to say madame president.
Re: Obama’s statement… Bzzzt! Wrong answer, Barack! I realize Obama is just trying to get us from here to there, but I can’t help thinking many Americans would respect the Democratic alternative far more if the Democratic candidates would take a firm stand against lawlessness, unconstitutional behavior, and unnecessary war.
hipparchia… why not impeach Bush, with or without impeaching Cheney first? That four-part WaPo series made it clear that Cheney is in fact running everything anyway. Offhand, I suspect Cheney would be easier to convict if impeached; there’s a lot of evidence that has already come to light. But if we sit around tolerating unconstitutional and illegal behavior because it’s politically inconvenient to impeach, or waiting to impeach the bastards in some imagined “proper” order, we will lose the respect of the very Americans whose support we need… namely, those who still care whether their leaders obey the law and comply with the Constitution. Moreover, the longer Dems wait to impeach, the more time Bush and Cheney have to build their fortifications… destroy documents, construct false legal arguments, etc.
Back to topic: Obama’s reluctance to impeach bothers me a lot. I’m still trying to decide if that’s a disqualifying offense in my selection of a Democratic candidate to support. It certainly doesn’t help his case with me.
Why can’t John Edwards be the nominee?
Certainly, both Bush and Cheney are guilty of impeachable offenses in precisely the “abuse of power” sense that history tells us the founding fathers intended by the use of the phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Barrack Obama’s brief comment, accordingly, does seem to fall far short of a reasonable rendering of the constitution or a clear-eyed understanding of the gravity of Bush’s misconduct in office. However, not knowing the context of his remark or whether the circumstances permitted a more comprehensive answer, I personally would be loathe to write off his candidacy on the basis of just the one quote you and others cite.
No one hungers more than I to see Bush, Cheney, and the rest of the thugs who enabled them punished to the maximum, starting — not ending with — impeachment. But the reality is that impeachment will not happen in the remainder of Bush’s present term in office. Not with this Congress. Not with this Republican Party. Not with the disreputable state of the American press. Not with the spreading anomie of an American public increasingly disconnected with their government, sound public policy, and the ideals of democratic society.
Yes, with Watergate Nixon was successfully threatened with impeachment (such that he resigned rather than endure it) in slightly less than the time remaining, now, in Bush’s current constitutionally-authorized term of office. But that was then, this is now. The best we can hope for, realistically, is a new president and administration who chart a dramatic new course for the nation, educate the public by example, heal the many chronic cancers afflicting our public life, and then, perhaps, find a way to punish Bush and Cheney, but good. (I think, for example, of sending them on phony foreign missions where they can be arrested and tried for war crimes.)
it will take a new president with high intelligence, subtlety, patience, wisdom, enduring moral values, and great personal courage. That’s why I support Al Gore.
The context isn’t important, because this is a conclusion. If he had said that impeachment would take away from more important things, I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t be so negative. It’s the fact that he is saying that their crimes don’t meet the standard of impeachable offenses, when even some Repubs and most legal experts agree they most certainly do.
Warrantless wiretapping is illegal. Torture is illegal. Using government agencies and personnel for political purposes is illegal. These are felonies, more serious crimes than the “misdemeanors” standard for impeachment.
How in hell do these people think that any of the Democratic goals are going to be realized with the Republicans blocking everything in Senate, and the Shrubbery blocking what they pass? Nothing is going to get done until the roadblocks are cleared. How much intelligence does it take to see that?
Gore, Clark, Richardson, Edwards, no problem. I would vote for Mrs. Clinton if she won the nomination, but that’s it, unless she admits she made a mistake on the AUMF for Iraq. Obama can forget it.
Steve’s right, if we start with Cheney a lot more evidence on Bush will come up. And even better, if Cheney is really running things, getting the biggest cancer out first would be preferable. Maybe Bush would be so scared without Cheney that he’d basically hit a comatose state in terms of being the “decider”. Regardless – conclusions by Obama are uncalled for, especially when we still know so little about what has really been going on.
What we do know, would get people a minimum of 30 months [Libby] and he was just an aide. Obviously Cheney is first, but failing to do anything means no oversight, and no start in the correcting the multiple problems.
Everyone who has entered public service since Bush took office is suspect. We are going to have to “de-Ba’athify” the US government.
Adam Goodheart’s review of “Are We Rome?” in yesterday’s Times inspires new notions of what could be done with Bush and Cheney:
We keep returning to the reality, that the White House is going to block any real attempts at reform. Nothing will get done by this Congress until the White House is forced to obey the Constitution.