[lbo-talk] Impeachment Summit this weekend in NYC

C. G. Estabrook galliher at uiuc.edu
Sat Feb 17 21:52:27 PST 2007


Impeachment is an archaic remedy for executive malfeasance, abandoned in practice in modern governments. But we have an 18th-century constitution, while the Brits e.g. have a 19th-century one, so impeachment remains our way to check an executive; in a parliamentary system, the government falls.

Cheney and Bush should be impeached together, because the long lists of crimes alleged belong to both of them. Pelosi could be president at the time of the next election, to Hillary's everlasting chagrin, and that seems good to me.

Not to impeach when the crimes are so obvious is a move towards making impeachment a dead letter. And impeachment even without conviction is an important political act, as the Clinton impeachment shows, though in fact it certainly would have been better, had Clinton been removed and Gore become president.

David Swanson writes in Counter Punch about "John Nichols' masterful book 'The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders Cure for Royalism,' which makes a couple of important points that have been forgotten..."

See <http://counterpunch.org/swanson02172007.html>. --CGE

Doug Henwood wrote:


> Whole thing seems like a waste of time. Minimal support, and the
> guy's out in 703 days anyway.



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