I’m going to steal a part of Peter Kornbluh’s title, above, from his Huffington Post Report about this, also a cut from him:
Tag: Richard Nixon
Jul 26 2008
John McCain’s Summer of Love American Style
In 1967, John McCain was shot out of the North Vietnamese sky, crash landed in a lake, taken prisoner, and held in captivity for … 41 years, so far.
No one can dismiss the unimaginable agony of enduring six years in an enemy prisoner of war camp. It is surely a brutal experience both physically and mentally. It is the sort of experience that never leaves you and, indeed, it seems never to have left John McCain. His entire post-POW frame of reference is shaped by what he went through, and also by what he missed as a consequence of his incarceration.
Jun 10 2008
The Purposes of Impeachment: It’s not Criminal Law
Aside from this introduction, this diary was first published on dailyKos July 30, 2007 under the title Impeachment 101: Perjury is Beside the Point. It borrows freely from a diary by SilentBob published April 13, 2007, and a yet earlier diary by darrelplant from December 26, 2006. The most salient aspects of all these diaries stem from the 1974 report of the legal staff of the Congressional Inquiry Committee considering Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment of Richard Nixon. It was written with Alberto Gonzales in mind, but it could apply to most high-ranking officials in the executive branch today.
We may be jaded, tired, disgusted, bored with repetition and even despairing, but we’re not going away. Not this time. This is not Nixon. As long as we are alive, we will remember what they have done and we will seek justice in the names of the literally millions who have suffered injustice.
The partial list of specific crimes at the end of the diary has only grown in the last year. A lot more evidence has come to light. We can see clearly what happens when we fail to support our laws, our rights, and our constitution.
Finally, I’m not going to be around much for commentary. I’m just sending this back out for review and to add my voice to the chorus, FWIW, but I can’t spend much time here until tonight.
Original diary, with edits:
Despite numerous cogent diaries on the subject, impeachment discussions here seem to suffer from misconceptions as to what constitutes proper grounds for impeachment. Specifically,
1) the Constitution places a positive burden on the President “to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” By extension, this burden is placed on civil officers. Criminal behavior does not necessarily constitute grounds for impeachment. Failing “to take care” does.
2) Unlike criminal proceedings, which function to punish miscreants and to protect individuals, impeachment proceedings serve the sole function of protecting the integrity of government or the Constitution itself.
3) The House is not required, nor should it be expected, to prove anything before impeaching.
4) Just as OJ Simpson is now “not guilty” of murder, a conviction by the Senate would mean that Alberto Gonzales could no longer serve as Attorney General. There is no appeal process and no independent basis for judging whether the decision is proper. No need to invoke the jury in the sky.
Okay, I admit it, I’m completely cribbing from other diaries. I love dKos for being all about this sort of information. And by “this sort of information”, I mean information based on primary documents, such as the Constitution and a 1974 report of the legal staff of the Congressional Inquiry Committee considering Constitutional Grounds for Presidential Impeachment of Richard Nixon. If you want to be on solid ground when debating the merits of impeachment, you need to read at least the conclusion of that 1974 report. This conclusion is quoted in this diary by SilentBob. darrelplant has also quoted freely from this document in providing highly enlightening commentary.
From the 1974 report:
Impeachment is a constitutional remedy addressed to serious offenses against the system of government. The purpose of impeachment under the Constitution is indicated by the limited scope of the remedy (removal from office and possible disqualification from future office) and by the stated grounds for impeachment (treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors). It is not controlling whether treason and bribery are criminal. More important, they are constitutional wrongs that subvert the structure of government, or undermine the integrity of office and even the Constitution itself, and thus are “high” offenses in the sense that word was used in English impeachments.
The most frustrating persistent myth here is that impeachment is necessarily tied to proof of criminality. To argue this is to woefully misunderstand both the language and intent of the Constitution. The Constitution specifies the grounds for impeachment: treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. To the founders, “high crimes and misdemeanors” was not a purposely broad term to allow inclusion of criminal activities such as perjury. To the contrary. The list of reasons for impeachment is intentionally limited to crimes against the structure of government or the Constitution itself. Similarly, the punishment for these offenses is limited to removal from office. Thus, “high crimes” does not mean ordinary criminality committed by those in high office. In fact, high crimes can be committed only by a person in high office. And conviction by the Senate is not intended to punish. The penalty for conviction is intended only to protect the structure of the government or the Constitution. Perjury is not necessarily grounds for impeachment. In fact, the crime of perjury itself is irrelevant except as it may relate to undermining the structure of the government.
Presumably, the strongest reason most of us want to get rid of this President and his gang has to do with their disdain for the Constitution and their general undermining of our government. Yet, there is a wide-spread assumption that we must find secondary reasons, such as perjury or violations of the Hatch Act. This view is really bass-ackwards. Perjury, or even Hatch Act violations, may not be a good enough reason for impeachment, but undermining the Constitution most certainly is. The impeachment clause of the Constitution is designed specifically to address the sorts of high crimes and misdemeanors being committed by this President, Vice President and other civil officers.
Let’s look more precisely at reasons for impeachment. From the 1974 report:
It is useful to note three major presidential duties of broad scope that are explicity recited in the Constitution: “to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” to the best of his ability. The first is directly imposed by the Constitution; the second and third are included in the constitutionally prescribed oath that the President is required to take before he enters upon the execution of his office and are, therefore, also expressly imposed by the Constitution.
The duty to take care is affirmative. So is the duty faithfully to execute the office. A President must carry out the obligations of his office diligently and in good faith.
Failing “to take care” is not a crime which can be committed by an ordinary citizen. It is not a crime against an individual or property. It is a crime against the Constitution. It is misguided to equate a Senate trial with a criminal proceeding, or to require proof of criminality as a prerequisite to impeachment. Suspicion that the Attorney General (or President or Vice President) has failed in his duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” constitutes indisputable grounds for impeaching. This is the equivalent of a grand jury determining whether sufficient evidence exists to go to trial.
After the House decides (i.e., votes) there is enough evidence to justify trial , the Senate operates as a jury in the sense that what they determine is what is so. If the criminal jury says OJ is innocent then he is innocent, no matter what you or I think. If the Senate says Gonzo must go, then Gonzo is gone. Even if impeached and convicted, he will not have been found guilty of any crime even if the process exposed criminality. He is simply dismissed from his post in government.
Finally, I want to throw out a more subjective impression, for what it’s worth. For as long as thirty years now, the Republicans have been focusing on power, willing to act in their own interests whenever they have the power to do so. We, OTOH, are focused on justice and truth. We want to double check with ourselves and our friends before acting to be sure we’ve got it right. I resonate with this attitude and usually appreciate it. But in this instance, I am very frustrated by it. While it seems almost of all of us progressives/Democrats agree that Bush and the gang are not “taking care the laws be faithfully executed,” we are tying our own hands as to what we can do about it. I regularly hear what is, to me, the absurd argument that the impeachment of Clinton somehow poisoned the well for the impeachment of GW Bush. (Because the Republicans brought a frivolous impeachment against Clinton, we are somehow prevented from impeaching for egregious acts? Weird.) Other people wring their hands over how it would look to the general public. We don’t want to look too partisan, do we? Still others regularly insist that we prove criminal behavior before proceeding. Well, if the President or other civil officer is guilty of not taking care to faithfully execute the laws, this constitutes grounds for impeachment. And if we can gather the votes for it, we should impeach him. Then we should try him in the Senate, during which proceeding we should gather evidence. Not having the votes yet means pushing to get them, not walking away from this crisis of government. It really is that simple.
Yesterday, a diarist was criticized by several as naive for suggesting that Gonzales be impeached for incompetence. My friends, incompetence constitutes more solid grounds for impeachment than perjury, in that it addresses the issue of faithfully executing the law. Let’s quit being so hard on ourselves and focus our criticism on those who are destroying our system of government. And let’s ground our discussion in understanding of what impeachment is really about.
In the interest of completeness, I include here a requirement which must be met for conviction and removal from office. Also, from the 1974 report:
Not all presidential misconduct is sufficient to constitute grounds for impeachment. There is a further requirement– substantiality. In deciding whether this further requirement has been met, the facts must be considered as a whole in the context of the office, not in terms of separate or isolated events. Because impeachment of a President is a grave step for the nation, it is predicated only upon conduct seriously incompatible with either the constitutional form and principles of our government or the proper performance of constitutional duties of the presidential office.
Discussion of whether we can meet this requirement would be much more pertinent and fruitful than whether any specific laws have been broken or whether the media will be critical.
Signing statements, illegal surveillance, violation of international law, politicization of the executive branch, violations of the Presidential Records Act, contempt of Congress, subverting enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, election fraud… and these are just the things we know about. It seems pretty substantial to me.
Jun 02 2008
The health care scam.
I have an idea for a health insurance company, one that is sure to work really well. Here’s the pitch:
You pay me a fee every month-say, between $500 and $1,000-and I pocket the money. In return, in the event you need someone to cover your medical expenses, I’ll tell you in so many words to go fuck yourself, you’re on your own. I’ll use any excuse to deny your claim, and if one of my employees does the unthinkable and puts me in a position of having to shell out money to pay for your freeloading, I’ll send that imbecile to join you on the unemployment line.
I might feel the occasional bout of generosity; I might deign to throw you the occasional bone, just to keep you complacent, and cover some minor thing. But don’t expect me to pay for your heart operation. What were you doing wearing it out by making it beat so much, anyway? Don’t you know that’s a sure-fire way to end up needing surgery at some point? Especially if you don’t take care of yourself by eating right and exercising regularly? And you can forget about that cancer treatment. Drugs and radiation treatments cost money. Pay for it yourself. I’m busy counting.
By the way, you can forget about complaining. Even if you manage to get through the array of computers set up to discourage you from lodging a complaint, any human employee is going to give you the runaround, too. Raise too much of a ruckus, and I’ll just cancel your policy. That’ll show you, you ingrate.
And I won’t stop there. Just in case some uppity customer decides this isn’t legal, or shouldn’t be, I’ll use some of the money you pay me every month to bribe politicians in the form of campaign contributions to pass legislation protecting my right to bilk you for those monthly fees. Oh, sure, you might complain. You might even try to vote out corrupt politicians who accept my bribes, but by the time you get off your lazy ass I’ll have bought pretty much everyone in D.C. and the fifty states who might be capable or inclined to resist. Let’s face it: with campaigns costing more and more money each cycle, politicians listen to those who can fork over a hell of a lot more than that measly ten or twenty dollars you can afford to part with. You’re screwed.
Great idea, right? Well, not for you, but we’re talking about me. You don’t factor into the equation, except as an ever-opening wallet. What’s that? You don’t think it’s so hot a concept? You’re right, it isn’t. But that’s exactly what you buy into whenever you sign up for insurance from companies ranging from Humana to Kaiser Permanente. The only difference between what I pitched to you, and what the health insurance industry tells you, is that I’m being up front about my intentions.
The health insurance industry is the among the biggest and most successful scam operations in the history of the United States. It is set up to get you to pay money in return for almost nothing. And because what little public health care exists is severely underfunded, and qualifications limited only to certain cross-sections of the poor and elderly, this means your options for alternatives are extremely limited. In fact, nearly fifty million Americans have no recourse but to go without insurance, because they cannot afford the premiums (I’m one of them, by the way).
How did all this get started? As Michael Moore pointed out in his excellent documentary, SiCKO (which I blogged about last year), the scam was created when the CEO of Kaiser Permanente at the time had his flunkies meet with then-president Richard Nixon to discuss how the insurance industry could kill three birds with one stone: dismantle what public health care system existed, ensure that it could never return, and become obscenely wealthy in the process. It wasn’t long afterward that Nixon pushed through Congress legislation that would fundamentally alter the health care system of the United States-for the worse.
What Nixon and Kaiser rammed through Congress resulted in the creation of the HMO system we suffer today. It’s the scam outfit that separates you from your money, while denying you coverage for your medical expenses. And you allow it to go on. Why is this? I could write a dissertation about it, but essentially it all boils down to fear and the dominance of the right in the media on issues such as health care. Professor George Lakoff of Berkley University described in 2005 how conservatives have come to shape and control the national discussion, and get Americans to vote against their own interests. The fear element involves scaring you with horror stories of socialism and the loss of freedom, never mind that you’ve already given up your freedom.
The problem is compounded not only by the failure of the Democratic Party to oppose this sort of swindle, but in its embrace of the status quo as a matter of policy. While Barack Obama builds up his illusion of progressivism, his actual history suggests he is not prepared to challenge the status quo at all, but merely is all too willing to continue it. Hillary Clinton joins him in being among the top recipients of bribe money from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The two Democratic rivals for the presidency have even taken millions of dollars in bribe money from so-called health professionals. And we all know where Republican John McCain stands on the issue of health care: more of the same.
This is the scam you pay for with your tax dollars, and the money you pay out of pocket. In my next entry, I’ll tell you how you can do something about it.
May 26 2008
May 29, 1453
I’m not sure if all of you have seen George Packer’s New Yorker piece, The Fall of Conservatism. Even though it’s datelined today, it’s been floating around the blogosphere for a couple of days now.
What struck me about it is how transparently and cynically based on greed, ignorance, racism, misogyny, bigotry, intolerance, and fear Republican. Party. Conservatism. is. It is an anti-democratic in the little ‘d’ sense ideology of a sado-masochistic society where all you get is abuse and the only satisfaction you can have is in your ability to abuse others, a frantic ass chasing dance to see who you can stick the boot in before your butt is kicked.
At it’s heart is a pessimistic view that things will never again be as good as they once were, a backwards looking denial of change except for the worse. If insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results as a political philosophy it is clinical.
As Packer’s interview with Buchanan shows, Republicans have been pushing the fear button really hard for a very long time now. Communists and Crime, Guns and Gays, your life is spiraling out of control so you should hate and envy those who are different. Why should they feel any better than you, what right do they have not to be panicing? Conservatism is about making everyone’s life as miserable and empty as yours is.
It’s all about the self loathing. They want to be able to express their shameful prejudices in public and force the rest of us to applaud. They project their own base crimes and secret sins as the general human condition and it almost never occurs to them that perhaps one should aspire to better. Instead they celebrate their coarse nature, wallowing in the nakedness and audacity of their con games, scams, and lies.
What’s more below is a few quotes that illustrate the shallowness and bankrupcy of Republican Party Conservatism. I can only count it a good thing if the coming election reduces it to regional irrelevancy along with the 30% at the bottom of the Bell curve who still believe in phallic fairytales of American Exceptionalism.
Mar 16 2008
Karl Rove is driving the Obama – Clinton wars
He certainly had the examples of what to do by the Nixon administration he adored from puberty.
History is being repeated with almost identical methods, and unfortunately so are falling for them that if we don’t expose them it may cost us the General election!
In a 1996 The Washington Post article By George Lardner
Buchanan Outlined Plan to Harass Democrats in ’72, Memo Shows
Rove stated that he IS an adviser to the McCain campaign, he also works for FOX news.
Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan strongly favored a plan of “covert operations” to harass and embarrass Democratic contenders in the heady days at the Nixon White House before the Watergate scandal.Buchanan laid out his ideas in an April 10, 1972, memo looking ahead to that summer’s Democratic National Convention
On the memo’s last page — one never turned over to Watergate congressional investigators — Buchanan and his top aide recommended staging counterfeit attacks by one Democrat on another, fouling up scheduled events, arranging demonstrations and spreading rumors to plague the rival party, all the while being careful not to run afoul of the Secret Service.
Feb 23 2008
Dismantling the arguments against impeachment
“I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
— Congressional oath of office
In the flush of excitement after the November 2006 elections, when Democrats had taken control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years and anything seemed possible, there was much discussion in the progressive blogosphere about the tantalizing prospect of finally holding to account the criminals in the BushCheney administration through the use of the constitutional mechanism of impeachment. (This in spite of the fact that incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had taken impeachment “off the table” half a year earlier.)
To some who had worked so hard to get Democrats elected to Congress, impeachment seemed the most obvious and necessary thing in the world now that BushCo’s Republican accomplices were no longer in the way to stop it – a natural process that would follow the administration’s criminal misdeeds as surely as night follows day.
Others argued against impeachment. Let’s not focus on the past, they said; we need to move our Democratic agenda forward. If Congress spends all its time on impeachment, it won’t get anything else done. Besides, they would argue, Republicans will spin it that we’re just out for revenge. It will hurt our chances in the 2008 elections. Anyway, we don’t have the votes to guarantee success. Not to mention that the Clinton fiasco cheapened impeachment forever in the minds of the public.
Feb 05 2008
Impeachment: Conyers Ulysses
This is the second in a series of diaries on impeachment
There was a time when House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers was a fierce warrior for impeachment. As a fourth-term congressman in 1972, Conyers was one of the first to introduce a House resolution calling for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, even before the Watergate burglary had occurred. In 1974, just after President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, Conyers wrote an essay entitled, Why Nixon Should Have Been Impeached, in which he laid out his case for an article of impeachment condemning Nixon’s illegal bombing and invasion of Cambodia, as well as the constitutional threat posed to America by the choice not to pursue impeachment.
But since taking over chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee in January 2007 – the same Judiciary Committee on which Conyers served in 1974 when its members drafted the three articles of impeachment against Nixon that were about to be voted on by the House when Nixon abruptly resigned – Conyers’ passion for impeachment has cooled considerably. Why, is anyone’s guess. One possibility might simply be Conyers’ age – he is now 78 years old, not the 42 he was when he introduced his first impeachment resolution. Another, more disturbing, possibility might be that Conyers has been pressured by the Democratic leadership in Congress to forgo talk of impeachment, for what reasons one can only imagine.
Regardless of the reason, Conyers for some time has not carried the torch he once bore. The impeachment flame burns dim in him, if it burns at all.
And yet – perhaps because I am a romantic at heart – I continue to hope. Conyers’ descent into complacency reminded me of one of my favorite poems, a poem that tells the story of a once-proud warrior who finally chafes at his now-banal existence, and resolves to undertake one last campaign, a campaign to achieve “some work of noble note” before the end. Perhaps Congressman Conyers will feel the same desire to leave a meaningful legacy:
Oct 07 2007
With today’s Congress, Nixon would not have resigned
Carl Bernstein was part of a 35-year retrospective on Watergate today as part of the 2007 Society of Professional Journalists National Convention. The Capitol Hill newspaper, The Hill, reports Carl Bernstein thinks Watergate would have played very differently if it happened today.
Why?
Because, Congressional oversight is more lax now than during Watergate.
“The difference with today is that the system did its job. The press did its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job,” Bernstein said Saturday. “There’s been great reporting on this president. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congress now and there’s still no oversight.”
Bernstein also said that “35 years of ideological warfare” could also change how the public would react to such a scandal.
“We live in a very different atmosphere today,” Bernstein said. “With Watergate, eventually the people of this country looked around and decided Nixon was a criminal president. I’m not sure the same chain of events would have taken place today.”
If we had today’s Congress during the Nixon presidency, then I doubt Richard Nixon would have even resigned. Shoot. It is doubtful even Vice President Spiro Agnew would have been forced to resign. Image, if you will, this scene on February 2, 1973. Nixon is before a joint session of Congress for the State of the Union address, and then…
 |
Welcome to 2007 with the same gang of Nixon minions running the U.S. government. Somewhere, Richard M. Nixon is smiling.
- 1
- 2