[lbo-talk] Moyers: Surprisingly Interesting impeachment discussion

cgrimes at rawbw.COM cgrimes at rawbw.COM
Sun Jul 15 15:36:46 PDT 2007


``Ramsey Clark's claim in your quote is that the president should have been impeached for breaches of *international* law, which legally is an extremely weird claim'' Michael Pollak

I thought about this a lot and tried to figure out an approach that would turn these violations into violations of domestic law. The only way I could see that, was through the fact that most of what Bush/Cheney have done are violations of UN charters and other international treaties, which were signed by previous presidents and ratified by the senate---in effect making them domestic law in this sense. Pretty thin stuff.

In Article 1, sec 8, there is a provision for congress to make law, `` To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations.'' That seemed to be another way to justify impeachment. Bush/Cheney have definitely been making offenses against the law of nations and committing all manner of felonies at Gitmo and elsewhere. Let's see, they have conspired to commit kidnapping, false imprisonment, torture, murder, and other crimes at a modest scale, say a few hundred or a few thousand.

There is also in the same article, same section, the power ``To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.'' This marque and reprisal stuff is pretty nasty. It empowers congress to authorize private militias and armed floatellas to seize enemy land convoys and enemy foreiggn ships, ran sack them for goodies, and I guess just keep the booty. So it looks like private contractors in Iraq are just doing their constitutional duty---except congress didn't authorize them to do so.

As I read this provision, congress has the power to write the rules of war not the president. By default, if congress didn't authorize such rules, then the president can not presume to make them up. But again it's also pretty thin.

``Impeachment, in the their view is Congress's power to stop the office of the president from expanding into something that is above the law (which is reflected in the title Nichols's book: Impeachment: the Founders' Cure for Royalism).'' MP

That's a great concept. and maybe it was close to at least one of the ideas floating around the founder's minds. They definitely wanted to limit the president's powers, particularly to engage in wars. OTOH Article 3, sec 4 says ``...shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.''

They clearly had criminal conduct in mind as the primary reason for impeachment. So I don't particularly buy the idea that impeachment has been misconceived or misunderstood as a criminal proceedure. I mean I get the idea that nobody is going to jail, just going home. But the reason is presumed criminal conduct in public office

Still, just about any reason is okay by me to get these arrogant bastards out of office or at least chopped them down a size.

My only worry is that what goes around, comes around. In the future a Republican congress will start aiming its guns on a Democratic president. What do we (I) think of these interpretations of impeachment when they are used against a side I or we might support?

For example, let's say the impossible happened and we end up with somebody like Hugo Chavez in the presidency. Obviously the Republicans and the entire corporate power elite wouldn't like it. They would certainly look around for ways to bring such a president down.

I don't know the details, but it would be interesting to find out if Chavez asked the Venezuelan legislature for expanded powers over the political economy, or did he just take them on? It would be nice to know as an example.

``I haven't even convinced myself that impeachment is a worthwhile idea.''

Oh, I have. This administration has to be formally brought down, as a `message' to future chief executives. This is not the way things are done. And the opposite is also likely to follow. If the things the Bush administration has done are simply ignored, they will be presumed to be okay precedent. Congress for its interest in maintaining its own power better figure out a way to dismantle all these special powers Bush and Cheney have given themselves ad hoc.

Anyway, I'll look for the program and watch it, if it shows up out here. Just looked it up. Great. Bill Moyer's Journal, 1:30am.

The local PBS station isn't very good. In fact it's lousey.

CG



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