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I am happy to see the author got this one right!
“Lying to Congress and the public in order to invade Iraq, illegally spying on and wiretapping Americans, authorizing torture and renditions, trying to strip Americans of their rights by seeking to detain people without access to legal counsel, the indefinite detention of non-citizens against whom no formal specific charges have been made and, possibly, leaking the name of a CIA operative all seem to be worthy of impeachment hearings. But that
Posted by wolf on Apr 20, 2006 at 10:15 AM
So…
1. Indefinite Detention of Non-citizens.
2. Intentionally Misrepresenting the threat of Iraqi WMDs.
3. Domestic spying without suitable warrants.
4. ‘Authorizing’ media leaks.
5. Being, in general, an incompetent leader.
Which of these do you claim to be false?
“The Left” must have one hell of a propaganda machine to have caused other Republicans to distance themselves from Bush for fear of the looming backlash.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 20, 2006 at 10:40 AM
Good question Harrower.
I think your item 1 is actually a good thing. Enemy combatants can sit in Cuba and rot. I have no problem with that.
Item 2 i claim to be false. (BTW - Do you feel that Roosevelt led the uS into WWII with full disclosure to the American people, just out of curiousity?)
Item 3 will be decided by the courts. In any case, i know of no personal gain Bush gets from this. Do you?
For 4, the president can authorize leaks as he chooses. No big deal.
I will give you 5 though. But still a large improvement over some former presidents (Jimmy Carter comes immediately to mind. However, while he was an incredibly inept president, he is perhaps the best ex-president we have now.) In any case, we elected him instead of the bozo windsurfer (i would have wished both parties could have found better candidates, sigh).
Don’t kid yourself, The Left is not really good at anything, including propaganda. This is, in my mind, unfortunate. We really could use a party that championed such ideals as “economic justice” and “fiscal responsibility” and “clean politics”. But, unfortuantely, we have just the Dems and the Repubs. Both just looking after their own, to the detriment of the country.
Posted by wolf on Apr 20, 2006 at 12:11 PM
In response to Wolf:
1. Who decides what an “enemy combatant” is? Are you comfortable allowing Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to make that determination? How many innocent people are you willing to allow to “rot” in Guantanamo Bay in order to make sure that we’ve got the bad guys? Five? 20? 100?
2. It’s interesting that when people try to defend Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they always try to bring the actions of ex-presidents into the discussion—presumably in an effort to divert the discussion. Bush lied about Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from Africa. He said Iraq’s aluminum tubes were for uranium enrichment, when the intelligence agencies had clearly stated that they were not. He falsely described a link between Iraq and al Qaida. He said that Iraqi drones had the capability drop a biological or chemical weapon within minutes. We were told that the locations of the chemical and biological weapons were known. Bush told us that we were in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraq and that the “final proof” might come “in the form of a mushroom cloud.” After the invasion, he claimed that we had found a mobile biological weapons lab. These lies were attempts to garner support for an invasion that was illegal, unncessary, and unwarranted. In my mind, there could not be more serious grounds for impeachment. You may “claim [these facts] to be false,” but then, who is the propagandist here? You or me? Each one of these lies is easily documentable.
3. Bush broke the law (FISA) when he authorized domestic warrantless wiretaps. Does one have to prove that Bush gained personally from this in order to prove that it was illegal?
4. The president has the authority to leak certain kinds of information. In other cases, he must consult first with the appropriate agencies. Legal experts are divided about Bush’s authority to leak the classified information that he did. In any case, Bush cherry-picked the intelligence he authorized to have leaked to the press, just as he cherry-picked the intelligence in the lead-up to war against Iraq. This decision was based not on concerns for national security, but to bolster his case for war. Not an impeachable offense, I think, but morally reprehensible.
5. So you think that Bush is a more competent leader than the “bozo windsurfer” (presumably Kerry)? This is a matter of opinion, of course. But I’ll take Kerry’s steady, even-handed diplomatic style over Bush’s reckless, blundering unilateralism anytime. Same with Al Gore. Those two candidates didn’t have Bush’s frat-boy charm, but I would have trusted either one of them with the important decisions that have been bungled by the Bush administration. I mean, are you really suggesting that Kerry’s awkward windsurfing attempts say anything about his presidential potential? Ever been mountain biking with Bush?
You forgot to mention Bush’s authorization of torture, his administration’s outing of a CIA operative in an effort to intimidate a whistleblower, and the Pentagon’s failure to plan for Iraq after the toppling of the Batthist regime.
I agree that the Left may not be very good at propaganda, but then again, this is not a skill that I value very highly. I value integrity, compassion, and leadership. That’s why I vote for Democrats instead of Republicans.
Posted by buzzdainer on Apr 21, 2006 at 5:27 PM
This story reminds me of another article by Jim Lobe (2003) Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception. Lobe explored the connection between the ideas of Strauss and Abram Shulsky, the man hired by Wolfowitz to serve as the director of the Office of Special Plans created to find evidence of WMD. In the same article Seymour Hersch, who wrote an article for the New York Times, stated that Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt
“criticize America’s intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment.” They argued that Strauss’s idea of hidden meaning, “alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception.” As Lobe continues
“Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical
Posted by Epistrophy on Apr 21, 2006 at 10:06 PM
whattheheck ,
You present us with a false dichotomy: either we “bellyache about our predicament,” or we try to get better candidates.
I don’t consider calls for Bush to be held accountable for his actions to be “bellyaching about our predicament.” I consider it part of ethical and respectable governance. I doubt that the Republican-controlled Congress will do anything, but that doesn’t mean that I should abdicate my own responsibility to demand that they do their jobs.
And I don’t consiser calling for Bush to be held accountable and calling for honest, ethical candidates to be mutually exclusive projects. Indeed, I think we should be doing both. That’s why I’m supporting Jack Carter for Nevada Senator, among many other good Democratic candidates across the country.
Posted by buzzdainer on Apr 22, 2006 at 9:17 AM
buzdainer,
IMO attempts to impeach Bush are a waste of time and would divert the focus both for the congress and the American public. It served no practical purpose with Clinton, but at least the country was not so obviously in danger of attack and our economic system as vulnerable as it is now.
The Secretary of Defense is an arrogant incompetent who sent one fourth as many troops to war as were needed. Our economy is a mess. The dollar is weakening. The trade deficit is growing as is our national debt. The borders are not secured. The oil suppy is dwindling. Homeland Security is a sick joke. 0ver 50 million people with no health care coverage. Job quality is in decline. Our education system is of third world quality. Social Security, Medicare, are unfunded.
Any and each of these is more important than a futile attempt to rub George’s nose in the dirt.
Let’s not give congress an excuse to continue avoiding their job responsibilities.
Posted by whattheheck on Apr 22, 2006 at 12:10 PM
buzzdainer - Nice reply.
Posted by wolf on Apr 22, 2006 at 4:08 PM
Wolf: Thanks.
whattheheck: Perhaps you misunderstand my intent. It is not my intention to “rub [Bush’s] nose in the dirt.” But I believe strongly that people should be held accountable for their actions. If a president lies the country into war, illegally wiretaps American citizens, outs a CIA operative in order to intimidate a whistleblower, and authorizes torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, that to me rises to the level of impeachability. I think it’s reasonable to expect the U.S. president to uphold the law (since that is one of the primary functions of the executive branch). That’s not even setting a particularly high standard. If the president refuses to do so, I think he should be impeached.
I disagree with your suggestion that external factors—the state of the economy, the condition of our public schools, the status of our health care system—should determine whether or not to impeach. The pertinent issue is whether or not Bush broke the law, and whether or not his actions caused harm to Americans. Otherwise, one could argue that a president should only be impeached if the economy is ship-shape, the country is in peacetime, and everybody is working a decent-paying job. That seems pretty illogical to me.
I agree that Congress has been avoiding its responsibilities, but I see little evidence to support the notion that if Bush is not impeached, Congress will begin to focus on such important issues as health care, alternative energy, education, and all the rest. After 12 years of ineffective Republican leadership in Congress, what makes you think that backing off the impeachment question will encourage them to start doing a better job?
This sounds to me like a variation on the “don’t change horses in midstream” conventional wisdom. What do you do when the horse is in midstream…and refuses to budge?
Posted by buzzdainer on Apr 22, 2006 at 5:23 PM
Buzzdainer,
Posted by whattheheck on Apr 23, 2006 at 7:09 AM
Whattheheck,
I agree that several of these points have not been investigated thoroughly enough—and they won’t be, unless Congress insists upon it. I also submit that my use of the word “if” was intentional. I certainly think that Bush has been incompetent, but I don’t have sufficient evidence to prove that his behavior warrants his removal from office. It appears that way, though, based on the evidence that has been made public. If the president refuses to cooperate with Congress, the only remaining viable option is impeachment. Congress must maintain its oversight responsibilities.
I disagree with your claim that when deciding whether or not to send the country to war, the president should be free to cherry-pick the intelligence that he shares with members of Congress, who are the ones who grant him the authority. The current situation in Iraq is a direct result of Bush’s pre-war misrepresentation of the facts on the ground in Iraq. In each of the cases I listed above, at the time of Bush’s uttering them, the intelligence community was saying precisely the opposite, yet Bush chose to present them as undisputed facts. All have turned out to be false. Why is this not being investigated? What, exactly, did Bush know, and when? How many false claims should a president be allowed to make in order to justify taking the country to war?
If no one challenges Bush on the wiretapping program, how will it ever get to the Supreme Court? If he did wiretap American citizens without a warrant, this certainly appears to be in violation of FISA. That’s explicitly what the law is intended to prevent.
“Declassifying” information is very, very different from outing an undercover CIA operative for one’s own political advantage. The president does not have the authority to use his executive privilege to intimidate whistleblowers. It surprises me that you would defend his so-called right to do this.
We already know that some people being held in Guantanamo Bay were not “enemy combatants.” A few have been released. How many more are being held without a legitimate reason? Are they being tortured?
The famous “torture memo,” penned by now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, was the Bush administration’s legal justification for abusing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere.
I also disagree with your formulation that we are at war with “radical Islam.” We are not at war with a religion, or even a strain of it. At least, I hope not. I’m not interested in killing people for their religious beliefs. I also think that the “war against terror” is a false formulation, since it’s impossible to wage war against an emotion. I also disagree with the idea of waging “war against terrorism,” since you can’t fight a tactic. I find these bizarre phrasings to be deeply troublesome. I think that they put us in a position where we can never win, where the war will never be over, where the goals will never be clear. Please don’t take this to mean that we shouldn’t try to stop terrorism using the full power of our intelligence agencies and (if necessary) our military, but if we don’t define our goals, I believe that it will become a permanent war that can never end. Bush has already said this is a job for “future presidents.”
And I agree, too, that Iran is dangerous. And now, thanks to Bush’s reckless behavior in Iraq, we have said to the world that we view ourselves as free to use “pre-emptive” war regardless of what the intelligence says, and that we see ourselves as not being subject to international law. Yes, I think the situation in Iran is very dangerous. Why is Bush sitting on his hands and lobbing vague threats in the general direction of Iran? Why is he leaving diplomacy to the Germans?
Posted by buzzdainer on Apr 23, 2006 at 9:01 AM
Wolf
I’d have ot say the growing disregard for the human rights of non-citizens, a state to which number one is a symptom, is an alarming change in the American mindset.
I find it hard to believe, with all of the reports and advice that was blatantly disregarded by Bush’s administration, that they could have seriously believed Hussein had anything resembling the weapons program they claimed him to have. It’s possible that this was unintentional, but that merely adds to his incompetence.
No. I doubt there was full disclosure at the entry of World War 2. I do, however, believe that Roosevelt gave a more truthful account of the overall situation that Bush did at the invasion of Iraq. I would even say that I believe Bush’s administration to be one of, if not the most, dishonest administrations in the history of the country.
Number three… well, we’ll see, when they finally get around to doing a full inquiry.
Number four: The problem is not that he ‘declassified’ the information to be leaked, but that he declassified a hand-picked portion of information that obscured the truth of the situation.
If I remember correctly, there was even a large scandal involving the reporter who was severely punished for publishing ‘classified’ information that was, apparently, no longer classified. This makes me wonder why the government didn’t issue a statement stating that the information was declassified then, rather than doing so when it came back to bite Bush in the ass.
Posted by Harrower on Apr 23, 2006 at 10:15 AM
Radical Islam was less dangerous than radical neocon geostrategic warmongering.
Which came first ?
WHO financed and encouraged these guys, see next line——
WHY is the USA the most despised and feared unpredictable rogue-nation in the world today ?
IRAN DON’T HAVE NO NUKES . DUH ! Great Threat ! The rest of us feel more threatened by the USA.
We’ve seen what you do when you want to remind us you are TopDog. Thankyou a lot for Fallujah. Next stop freedomfries and Paris ?
Radical Islam alive and well in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN , thanks to which great freedom-loving plutocracy ?
Posted by frog on Apr 23, 2006 at 6:28 PM
WTH,
One one hand, I admire your attempts to be moderate and even-handed. Trying to see both sides of a question is a necessary component of intellectual honesty. On the other hand when one applies a middle of the road approach to trying to understand the views of two parties, and one party is honestly attempting to discern what is true and the other party is consciously attempting to obfuscate the truth with distortions and lies, then one is not doing any service to the truth. It is in situations like this that one must take stock of one’s loyalties and decide, “Which side are you on?”
Do you really think waiting until you have absolutely certain proof beyond a reasonable doubt before making a rational choice is necessary or even possible in an atmosphere where those with the most power to control the flow of information are those who have shown repeatedly and unremittingly an over-weening willingness to distort and distend that flow to their own ends? Do you really believe that one must have a fully formed and proven alternative before concluding that the present situation is untenable? In my humble view that is a recipe for paralysis.
Is the threat posed by a handful of deathwish driven fanatics so great that we must undermine the very foundations of liberty? Is that threat really best confronted by an authority that has shown, if not a certain disengenuity, then a massive propensity for incompetence?
Simple questions. I can’t ensure that you will find the answers so easy, but answer them we must.
Posted by luminous beauty on Apr 24, 2006 at 7:53 AM
Buzzdainer,
Posted by whattheheck on Apr 24, 2006 at 9:10 AM
<b>WTH<b>
apols for my extreme little rant above—but you got my goat with that stuff about radical Islam.
Your other posts on globalisation show so much more understanding that it surprised me that you should fall for this “long war” trick.
As for Gitmo, most of those guys were picked up miles from combat ops, even in different countries. “Enemy combatants” is BushSpeak.
Posted by frog on Apr 24, 2006 at 9:13 AM
Will Americans ever remove their religionist / patriotic blinders?
How far will they allow fascism to flourish? Until they’ve fully developed the next Hitler, born of “enlightened” American rhetoric? Let’s all grow up now, shall we?
Steven Wanzell,
artist/activist/ex-American
www.wanzellarts.com.ar
Posted by wanzellarts on Apr 25, 2006 at 12:29 PM
with bush at 32% approval, congress at 23%,Rumsfeld’s and cheney at 35%.The White House has also been battered by a series of domestic political scandals, from a row over port security to its handling of Hurricane Katrina and a criminal investigation into the leaking of a CIA official’s identity.Jack Abramoff, scooter libby,Karl Rove, dilemma
on the horizon maybe bush can beat nixon as the lowest approval rating of all time.
Bush’s secret war against the Constitution is breathtaking in its sweep. Bush’s criminal wrong-doing is almost without parallel. Using his “long war” as a rationale for usurping all the power that belongs to the people, Bush has secretly shredded all federal laws designed to prevent illegal secret wiretapping of the people.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney went out of their way to conceal that they had set up a secret spying and wiretapping operation. When the scandal finally broke, Bush tried to minimize his crimes by saying he had merely wiretapped international calls and very few people were affected. Then, ten days ago, we learned that domestic calls and emails are also subject to wiretapping without court order.
AT&T documents suggest that telephone companies may be helping the government engage in wholesale interception of telephone calls, e-mail messages and Web surfing. If AT&T is violating its customers’ privacy rights, it should come clean, and stop immediately.
“According to Mark Klein, a longtime AT&T technician who is now retired, AT&T has maintained a secret room at its San Francisco Internet and telephone hub where its customers’ data could be mined by keywords, e-mail addresses and other attributes. Mr. Klein says the National Security Agency was given access to the room and the data. He says other technicians have reported to him that similar rooms exist at other AT&T sites.”
The President has no right to violate federal laws and Congress has a constitutional mandate to enforce the law and hold the President accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors
Nixon was forced to resign rather than be impeached. Those closest to the Nixon impeachment, today are making vivid comparisons between Bush and Nixon.
Carl Bernstein, famous for breaking the Watergate story, writes
“Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans - including some of the president’s top lieutenants - now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans - nearing fifty percent in some polls - who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.
“John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush’s presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.
“Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor’s office in downtown Washington.
All of us at VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org
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Posted by brian28 on Apr 27, 2006 at 11:45 AM
Some just don’t understand how politics works -
As an elected official, if you ask me to tell the truth, I can say ANYTHING
and unless you catch me red handed - it’s the truth isn’t it ?!? ...
Bush the first was asked about covert operations in a press confrence and I’ll never forget how he answered. He said we (adm.) will continue to use covert operation for the good of America. Thats why we have elections. If the American people don’t like it, they can vote us out.
there you have it
Posted by R.B.Green on Apr 29, 2006 at 1:14 AM
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I am happy to see the author got this one right!
“Lying to Congress and the public in order to invade Iraq, illegally spying on and wiretapping Americans, authorizing torture and renditions, trying to strip Americans of their rights by seeking to detain people without access to legal counsel, the indefinite detention of non-citizens against whom no formal specific charges have been made and, possibly, leaking the name of a CIA operative all seem to be worthy of impeachment hearings. But that
So…
1. Indefinite Detention of Non-citizens.
2. Intentionally Misrepresenting the threat of Iraqi WMDs.
3. Domestic spying without suitable warrants.
4. ‘Authorizing’ media leaks.
5. Being, in general, an incompetent leader.
Which of these do you claim to be false?
“The Left” must have one hell of a propaganda machine to have caused other Republicans to distance themselves from Bush for fear of the looming backlash.
Good question Harrower.
I think your item 1 is actually a good thing. Enemy combatants can sit in Cuba and rot. I have no problem with that.
Item 2 i claim to be false. (BTW - Do you feel that Roosevelt led the uS into WWII with full disclosure to the American people, just out of curiousity?)
Item 3 will be decided by the courts. In any case, i know of no personal gain Bush gets from this. Do you?
For 4, the president can authorize leaks as he chooses. No big deal.
I will give you 5 though. But still a large improvement over some former presidents (Jimmy Carter comes immediately to mind. However, while he was an incredibly inept president, he is perhaps the best ex-president we have now.) In any case, we elected him instead of the bozo windsurfer (i would have wished both parties could have found better candidates, sigh).
Don’t kid yourself, The Left is not really good at anything, including propaganda. This is, in my mind, unfortunate. We really could use a party that championed such ideals as “economic justice” and “fiscal responsibility” and “clean politics”. But, unfortuantely, we have just the Dems and the Repubs. Both just looking after their own, to the detriment of the country.
In response to Wolf:
1. Who decides what an “enemy combatant” is? Are you comfortable allowing Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to make that determination? How many innocent people are you willing to allow to “rot” in Guantanamo Bay in order to make sure that we’ve got the bad guys? Five? 20? 100?
2. It’s interesting that when people try to defend Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, they always try to bring the actions of ex-presidents into the discussion—presumably in an effort to divert the discussion. Bush lied about Iraq’s efforts to get uranium from Africa. He said Iraq’s aluminum tubes were for uranium enrichment, when the intelligence agencies had clearly stated that they were not. He falsely described a link between Iraq and al Qaida. He said that Iraqi drones had the capability drop a biological or chemical weapon within minutes. We were told that the locations of the chemical and biological weapons were known. Bush told us that we were in imminent danger of being attacked by Iraq and that the “final proof” might come “in the form of a mushroom cloud.” After the invasion, he claimed that we had found a mobile biological weapons lab. These lies were attempts to garner support for an invasion that was illegal, unncessary, and unwarranted. In my mind, there could not be more serious grounds for impeachment. You may “claim [these facts] to be false,” but then, who is the propagandist here? You or me? Each one of these lies is easily documentable.
3. Bush broke the law (FISA) when he authorized domestic warrantless wiretaps. Does one have to prove that Bush gained personally from this in order to prove that it was illegal?
4. The president has the authority to leak certain kinds of information. In other cases, he must consult first with the appropriate agencies. Legal experts are divided about Bush’s authority to leak the classified information that he did. In any case, Bush cherry-picked the intelligence he authorized to have leaked to the press, just as he cherry-picked the intelligence in the lead-up to war against Iraq. This decision was based not on concerns for national security, but to bolster his case for war. Not an impeachable offense, I think, but morally reprehensible.
5. So you think that Bush is a more competent leader than the “bozo windsurfer” (presumably Kerry)? This is a matter of opinion, of course. But I’ll take Kerry’s steady, even-handed diplomatic style over Bush’s reckless, blundering unilateralism anytime. Same with Al Gore. Those two candidates didn’t have Bush’s frat-boy charm, but I would have trusted either one of them with the important decisions that have been bungled by the Bush administration. I mean, are you really suggesting that Kerry’s awkward windsurfing attempts say anything about his presidential potential? Ever been mountain biking with Bush?
You forgot to mention Bush’s authorization of torture, his administration’s outing of a CIA operative in an effort to intimidate a whistleblower, and the Pentagon’s failure to plan for Iraq after the toppling of the Batthist regime.
I agree that the Left may not be very good at propaganda, but then again, this is not a skill that I value very highly. I value integrity, compassion, and leadership. That’s why I vote for Democrats instead of Republicans.
This story reminds me of another article by Jim Lobe (2003) Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception. Lobe explored the connection between the ideas of Strauss and Abram Shulsky, the man hired by Wolfowitz to serve as the director of the Office of Special Plans created to find evidence of WMD. In the same article Seymour Hersch, who wrote an article for the New York Times, stated that Shulsky and his co-author Schmitt
“criticize America’s intelligence community for its failure to appreciate the duplicitous nature of the regimes it deals with, its susceptibility to social-science notions of proof, and its inability to cope with deliberate concealment.” They argued that Strauss’s idea of hidden meaning, “alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception. Indeed, it suggests that deception is the norm in political life, and the hope, to say nothing of the expectation, of establishing a politics that can dispense with it is the exception.” As Lobe continues
“Strauss believed that societies should be hierarchical
whattheheck ,
You present us with a false dichotomy: either we “bellyache about our predicament,” or we try to get better candidates.
I don’t consider calls for Bush to be held accountable for his actions to be “bellyaching about our predicament.” I consider it part of ethical and respectable governance. I doubt that the Republican-controlled Congress will do anything, but that doesn’t mean that I should abdicate my own responsibility to demand that they do their jobs.
And I don’t consiser calling for Bush to be held accountable and calling for honest, ethical candidates to be mutually exclusive projects. Indeed, I think we should be doing both. That’s why I’m supporting Jack Carter for Nevada Senator, among many other good Democratic candidates across the country.
buzdainer,
IMO attempts to impeach Bush are a waste of time and would divert the focus both for the congress and the American public. It served no practical purpose with Clinton, but at least the country was not so obviously in danger of attack and our economic system as vulnerable as it is now.
The Secretary of Defense is an arrogant incompetent who sent one fourth as many troops to war as were needed. Our economy is a mess. The dollar is weakening. The trade deficit is growing as is our national debt. The borders are not secured. The oil suppy is dwindling. Homeland Security is a sick joke. 0ver 50 million people with no health care coverage. Job quality is in decline. Our education system is of third world quality. Social Security, Medicare, are unfunded.
Any and each of these is more important than a futile attempt to rub George’s nose in the dirt.
Let’s not give congress an excuse to continue avoiding their job responsibilities.
buzzdainer - Nice reply.
Wolf: Thanks.
whattheheck: Perhaps you misunderstand my intent. It is not my intention to “rub [Bush’s] nose in the dirt.” But I believe strongly that people should be held accountable for their actions. If a president lies the country into war, illegally wiretaps American citizens, outs a CIA operative in order to intimidate a whistleblower, and authorizes torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions, that to me rises to the level of impeachability. I think it’s reasonable to expect the U.S. president to uphold the law (since that is one of the primary functions of the executive branch). That’s not even setting a particularly high standard. If the president refuses to do so, I think he should be impeached.
I disagree with your suggestion that external factors—the state of the economy, the condition of our public schools, the status of our health care system—should determine whether or not to impeach. The pertinent issue is whether or not Bush broke the law, and whether or not his actions caused harm to Americans. Otherwise, one could argue that a president should only be impeached if the economy is ship-shape, the country is in peacetime, and everybody is working a decent-paying job. That seems pretty illogical to me.
I agree that Congress has been avoiding its responsibilities, but I see little evidence to support the notion that if Bush is not impeached, Congress will begin to focus on such important issues as health care, alternative energy, education, and all the rest. After 12 years of ineffective Republican leadership in Congress, what makes you think that backing off the impeachment question will encourage them to start doing a better job?
This sounds to me like a variation on the “don’t change horses in midstream” conventional wisdom. What do you do when the horse is in midstream…and refuses to budge?
Buzzdainer,
Whattheheck,
I agree that several of these points have not been investigated thoroughly enough—and they won’t be, unless Congress insists upon it. I also submit that my use of the word “if” was intentional. I certainly think that Bush has been incompetent, but I don’t have sufficient evidence to prove that his behavior warrants his removal from office. It appears that way, though, based on the evidence that has been made public. If the president refuses to cooperate with Congress, the only remaining viable option is impeachment. Congress must maintain its oversight responsibilities.
I disagree with your claim that when deciding whether or not to send the country to war, the president should be free to cherry-pick the intelligence that he shares with members of Congress, who are the ones who grant him the authority. The current situation in Iraq is a direct result of Bush’s pre-war misrepresentation of the facts on the ground in Iraq. In each of the cases I listed above, at the time of Bush’s uttering them, the intelligence community was saying precisely the opposite, yet Bush chose to present them as undisputed facts. All have turned out to be false. Why is this not being investigated? What, exactly, did Bush know, and when? How many false claims should a president be allowed to make in order to justify taking the country to war?
If no one challenges Bush on the wiretapping program, how will it ever get to the Supreme Court? If he did wiretap American citizens without a warrant, this certainly appears to be in violation of FISA. That’s explicitly what the law is intended to prevent.
“Declassifying” information is very, very different from outing an undercover CIA operative for one’s own political advantage. The president does not have the authority to use his executive privilege to intimidate whistleblowers. It surprises me that you would defend his so-called right to do this.
We already know that some people being held in Guantanamo Bay were not “enemy combatants.” A few have been released. How many more are being held without a legitimate reason? Are they being tortured?
The famous “torture memo,” penned by now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, was the Bush administration’s legal justification for abusing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere.
I also disagree with your formulation that we are at war with “radical Islam.” We are not at war with a religion, or even a strain of it. At least, I hope not. I’m not interested in killing people for their religious beliefs. I also think that the “war against terror” is a false formulation, since it’s impossible to wage war against an emotion. I also disagree with the idea of waging “war against terrorism,” since you can’t fight a tactic. I find these bizarre phrasings to be deeply troublesome. I think that they put us in a position where we can never win, where the war will never be over, where the goals will never be clear. Please don’t take this to mean that we shouldn’t try to stop terrorism using the full power of our intelligence agencies and (if necessary) our military, but if we don’t define our goals, I believe that it will become a permanent war that can never end. Bush has already said this is a job for “future presidents.”
And I agree, too, that Iran is dangerous. And now, thanks to Bush’s reckless behavior in Iraq, we have said to the world that we view ourselves as free to use “pre-emptive” war regardless of what the intelligence says, and that we see ourselves as not being subject to international law. Yes, I think the situation in Iran is very dangerous. Why is Bush sitting on his hands and lobbing vague threats in the general direction of Iran? Why is he leaving diplomacy to the Germans?
Wolf
I’d have ot say the growing disregard for the human rights of non-citizens, a state to which number one is a symptom, is an alarming change in the American mindset.
I find it hard to believe, with all of the reports and advice that was blatantly disregarded by Bush’s administration, that they could have seriously believed Hussein had anything resembling the weapons program they claimed him to have. It’s possible that this was unintentional, but that merely adds to his incompetence.
No. I doubt there was full disclosure at the entry of World War 2. I do, however, believe that Roosevelt gave a more truthful account of the overall situation that Bush did at the invasion of Iraq. I would even say that I believe Bush’s administration to be one of, if not the most, dishonest administrations in the history of the country.
Number three… well, we’ll see, when they finally get around to doing a full inquiry.
Number four: The problem is not that he ‘declassified’ the information to be leaked, but that he declassified a hand-picked portion of information that obscured the truth of the situation.
If I remember correctly, there was even a large scandal involving the reporter who was severely punished for publishing ‘classified’ information that was, apparently, no longer classified. This makes me wonder why the government didn’t issue a statement stating that the information was declassified then, rather than doing so when it came back to bite Bush in the ass.
Radical Islam was less dangerous than radical neocon geostrategic warmongering.
Which came first ?
WHO financed and encouraged these guys, see next line——
WHY is the USA the most despised and feared unpredictable rogue-nation in the world today ?
IRAN DON’T HAVE NO NUKES . DUH ! Great Threat ! The rest of us feel more threatened by the USA.
We’ve seen what you do when you want to remind us you are TopDog. Thankyou a lot for Fallujah. Next stop freedomfries and Paris ?
Radical Islam alive and well in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN , thanks to which great freedom-loving plutocracy ?
WTH,
One one hand, I admire your attempts to be moderate and even-handed. Trying to see both sides of a question is a necessary component of intellectual honesty. On the other hand when one applies a middle of the road approach to trying to understand the views of two parties, and one party is honestly attempting to discern what is true and the other party is consciously attempting to obfuscate the truth with distortions and lies, then one is not doing any service to the truth. It is in situations like this that one must take stock of one’s loyalties and decide, “Which side are you on?”
Do you really think waiting until you have absolutely certain proof beyond a reasonable doubt before making a rational choice is necessary or even possible in an atmosphere where those with the most power to control the flow of information are those who have shown repeatedly and unremittingly an over-weening willingness to distort and distend that flow to their own ends? Do you really believe that one must have a fully formed and proven alternative before concluding that the present situation is untenable? In my humble view that is a recipe for paralysis.
Is the threat posed by a handful of deathwish driven fanatics so great that we must undermine the very foundations of liberty? Is that threat really best confronted by an authority that has shown, if not a certain disengenuity, then a massive propensity for incompetence?
Simple questions. I can’t ensure that you will find the answers so easy, but answer them we must.
Buzzdainer,
<b>WTH<b>
apols for my extreme little rant above—but you got my goat with that stuff about radical Islam.
Your other posts on globalisation show so much more understanding that it surprised me that you should fall for this “long war” trick.
As for Gitmo, most of those guys were picked up miles from combat ops, even in different countries. “Enemy combatants” is BushSpeak.
LB,
Will Americans ever remove their religionist / patriotic blinders?
How far will they allow fascism to flourish? Until they’ve fully developed the next Hitler, born of “enlightened” American rhetoric? Let’s all grow up now, shall we?
Steven Wanzell,
artist/activist/ex-American
www.wanzellarts.com.ar
with bush at 32% approval, congress at 23%,Rumsfeld’s and cheney at 35%.The White House has also been battered by a series of domestic political scandals, from a row over port security to its handling of Hurricane Katrina and a criminal investigation into the leaking of a CIA official’s identity.Jack Abramoff, scooter libby,Karl Rove, dilemma
on the horizon maybe bush can beat nixon as the lowest approval rating of all time.
Bush’s secret war against the Constitution is breathtaking in its sweep. Bush’s criminal wrong-doing is almost without parallel. Using his “long war” as a rationale for usurping all the power that belongs to the people, Bush has secretly shredded all federal laws designed to prevent illegal secret wiretapping of the people.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney went out of their way to conceal that they had set up a secret spying and wiretapping operation. When the scandal finally broke, Bush tried to minimize his crimes by saying he had merely wiretapped international calls and very few people were affected. Then, ten days ago, we learned that domestic calls and emails are also subject to wiretapping without court order.
AT&T documents suggest that telephone companies may be helping the government engage in wholesale interception of telephone calls, e-mail messages and Web surfing. If AT&T is violating its customers’ privacy rights, it should come clean, and stop immediately.
“According to Mark Klein, a longtime AT&T technician who is now retired, AT&T has maintained a secret room at its San Francisco Internet and telephone hub where its customers’ data could be mined by keywords, e-mail addresses and other attributes. Mr. Klein says the National Security Agency was given access to the room and the data. He says other technicians have reported to him that similar rooms exist at other AT&T sites.”
The President has no right to violate federal laws and Congress has a constitutional mandate to enforce the law and hold the President accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors
Nixon was forced to resign rather than be impeached. Those closest to the Nixon impeachment, today are making vivid comparisons between Bush and Nixon.
Carl Bernstein, famous for breaking the Watergate story, writes
“Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans - including some of the president’s top lieutenants - now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans - nearing fifty percent in some polls - who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.
“John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush’s presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.
“Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor’s office in downtown Washington.
All of us at VoteToImpeach / ImpeachBush.org
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Some just don’t understand how politics works -
As an elected official, if you ask me to tell the truth, I can say ANYTHING
and unless you catch me red handed - it’s the truth isn’t it ?!? ...
Bush the first was asked about covert operations in a press confrence and I’ll never forget how he answered. He said we (adm.) will continue to use covert operation for the good of America. Thats why we have elections. If the American people don’t like it, they can vote us out.
there you have it
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