Sometimes being a Republican means never having to say you were wrong. President Bush is on film being warned about Hurricane Katrina and on film swearing he wasn't warned and could not possibly have been expected to imagine such a thing was coming. Bush was warned by the CIA of possible al Qaeda attacks a month before 9-11, took no steps to prevent them, and now says he had no earthly way of imagining what was coming. We know that top Iraqis, including Saddam Hussein's son-in-law filled the United States in on the truth, but Bush tells us he had no way of possibly imagining that all those mythical stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction didn't really exist. Generals warned that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to occupy Iraq, and economists warned that it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. They lost their jobs, and Bush now tells us he had no humanly possible way of imagining that such things were true. So, somebody ought to have told Bill Clinton. You don't go out there and say "I did not have sex with that woman" and get yourself impeached. You go out there and say "I had no way of imagining what might happen when she crawled under my desk."
What exactly is an impeachable offense? Essentially it is an abuse of power. A crime can be an impeachable offense and cannot be. And an action can be an impeachable offense without being a crime. If the president cheats on his taxes, that may not be impeachable. You or I could do that. It's not an abuse of his power. But if he lies to the public about serious national policy matters, that may be impeachable, without being a crime. Shooting your hunting buddy in the face: not impeachable. Outing an undercover agent: impeachable. Lying about sex is arguably not a proper impeachable offense. Anyone can do THAT. Firing U.S. Attorneys because they won't pervert the justice system to serve your partisan electoral interests is probably impeachable. In the end, of course, what's impeachable is simply whatever the House of Representatives decides is impeachable. The founders discussed more than anything else, I think, the need to have the power of impeachment in case a president took the nation into an unnecessary war.
When President Polk misled the nation into an aggressive war on Mexico with the intention of stealing Mexican land, a young Republican congressman named Abraham Lincoln challenged him. Last year, Republican Alaska Congressman Don Young attempted on the floor of the House to quote Abraham Lincoln's opinion on opposition to presidents' war plans. Young failed rather dramatically. Here's his misquote of Lincoln:
That was close. You can see how Young could have made the mistake. Here's what Lincoln actually said:
"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you 'be silent; I see it, if you don't.' The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."
Lincoln wrote these words while America was at war with Mexico, under the presidency of James Polk, and while Lincoln was a member of Congress. But Lincoln did more than talk about the fraud that had been used to launch that illegal and imperialistic war. He introduced a resolution demanding that Polk provide proof. Polk claimed to have launched that war only after American blood had been shed on American soil. Lincoln's resolution required Polk to identify the spot where that blood had been shed.
"Let him answer fully, fairly, and candidly," Lincoln said of the wartime President. "Let him answer with facts and not with arguments. Let him attempt no evasion, no equivocation."
When President Polk did not answer, Lincoln and John Quincy Adams sought a formal investigation of the president's pre-war intelligence claims, and of his use of secret funds to launch his fraudulent and illegal war. Under this pressure, Polk announced that he would not seek reelection. Lincoln, Adams, and their allies in Congress then passed a resolution honoring the service of Major General Zachary Taylor "in a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States."
Which brings us to the question of exactly what Bush's and Cheney's impeachable offenses are. An exhaustive list would take us all day, so I'll give you my top 12 for the president and my top 12 for his boss.
And by the way, the founders intentionally chose a single executive, not a pair, not a triumvirate, not a council, in order to hold that one person responsible for the executive branch. The Cheney co-presidency and groups like the secret energy task force deny us the ability to know who the decider is, but under our Constitution it really is Bush, regardless of what you may think of his mental abilities.
BUSH:
1. Refusal to comply with subpoenas (not disputable, and passed by the Judiciary Committee against Nixon)
2. Routine violation of numerous laws, preceded by announcement of intention to do so in signing statements (White House website and GAO studies)
3. Violating U.S. law and the Constitution through widespread wiretapping of the phone calls and emails of Americans without a warrant. (Confessed to.)
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