[lbo-talk] Impeachment Summit this weekend in NYC

[C. G. Estabrook]

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.