I’ve been rattling this around in my head for a while now, and Bush’s reportedly tepid response to the Iraq Commission’s report–and his recent comparing of himself to Harry Truman–has forced me to the conclusion that, yes, he should be impeached.
Now the response one often hears as to why this is a bad idea is that it automatically means: President Cheney.
I disagree.
History shows that impeachment of a president does not automatically mean power devolves onto the vice-president. Impeachment is merely the first of two stages required to remove someone from office. Two presidents have been impeached in our history; in neither instance did the vice-president wind up as commander-in-chief.
I don’t think he needs to be impeached to be removed from office. I think he needs to be impeached to get his attention. Bush has ceased worrying about how his policies are impacting upon our soldiers and their families and the people of Iraq and–let’s face it–the global community, in terms of their own interests and their relationships with us. His major concern appears to be about his legacy and his place in history. If he thinks his place in history will be as the first president to be impeached and removed, that might be the cold dash of water in the face he needs.
Besides, it’s only just: If a president can be impeached over getting a bløw jøb from one person, certainly a president can be impeached over giving a screw job to 250 million people.
To paraphrase “Heroes”–“Impeach the President; Save the World.”
PAD
• 
Bill, your mere facts are no match for his illogic.
Since there is no reason for anyone NOT incapacitated to resign I assumed that any reader would be smart enough to understand what i was saying and for that I apologize. One assumption too many, I guess.
not again.
“Posted by Bill Myers at December 15, 2006 12:35 PM
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 15, 2006 12:23 PM
OK.. I apparently should have said: You need a process to weed out the bad apples that do get through, as they are identified, rather than have to wait for the next election.
But we have that covered as well. Members of the executive and judiciary branches of the U.S. Government can be impeached and subsequently removed from office. Members of Congress can be, and have been, expelled.”
Ok…
Apparently I should have said: Which is WHY you need a process, such as the impeachment option that I know you have, which is what we were talking about originally, to weed out the bad apples that do get through, as they are identified, rather than have to wait for the next election…. gasp, gasp, pant…
In context, I was attempting to *briefly* address a point of process definition in a comment that was reasonably digressive already.
Moving on – please God – one thing you could clarify for me: are you stuck with the four year fixed term between elections or could an election theoretically be called earlier? By the ruling party?
Cheers.
I second Micha’s comment.
Micha, I assure you if another flame war is to occur, it will happen without my participation. I merely sought to clarify what I wrote. You’ll note that my response to you-know-who was devoid of anything resembling a personal attack. You’ll also note that since the “A Smart Move” thread was closed, I’ve let Mike insult me more than once without responding. I intend to continue.
I can only ask that you judge me going forward by what I do, and not what you fear that I’ll do.
Bill Mulligan, my good friend, your response to you-know-who was relatively mild. But in light of what happened before, our actions are going to be looked at under the proverbial microscope. Fair? Perhaps not. But it’s the way of the world.
If you believe only one thing I tell you in this lifetime, let it be this: if you avoid mixing it up with you-know-who, his insults and jabs will become weapons of self-destruction. You’ll come out smelling like a rose, and you won’t have to lift a finger to do it.
🙂
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 15, 2006 06:49 PM
Apparently I should have said: Which is WHY you need a process, such as the impeachment option that I know you have, which is what we were talking about originally, to weed out the bad apples that do get through, as they are identified, rather than have to wait for the next election…. gasp, gasp, pant…
Sorry. Didn’t get your meaning the first or second time. Trust me, I wasn’t trying to be obtuse. 🙂
Moving on – please God – one thing you could clarify for me: are you stuck with the four year fixed term between elections or could an election theoretically be called earlier? By the ruling party?
At the risk of being struck by lightning, as your question seemed to be directed at God and I am most certainly not He: yeah, barring a president’s removal from office by the Senate, or the president’s death, or his or her resignation, we are “stuck” with the four-year term.
On the one hand, it means sometimes we have to wait in order to “throw the bum out.” On the other hand, it gives us a level of stability that many parliamentary systems sometimes lack. Like anything, it’s a trade-off.
Cheers to you as well.
I’m not sure if this is a sign of impending dyslexia or something, but when I glanced at the thread a minute ago it very briefly looked like it said “Bush should be impregnated.” :p
And that’s my big contribution to the discussion for today. THANK YOU, GOODNIGHT! *bows*
Some are born to obtuseness, some achieve obtuseness and others have it thrust upon them.
(Possibly by squirrels 😛 )
“please God” is a contraction of ‘and it please God’, which means – roughly – if a thing is possible…
Fixed four year terms do have some appeal, but – as you rightly say it ia a trade off.
For interest’s sake:
In the UK a General Election – deciding who gets to run the country – must be called within 5 years of the last General Election. If the ruling party feel they are doing particularly well they can go to the polls to effectively extend their mandate, thus Bliar/New Labour won elections in 1997, 2001 and 2005. There is some conjecture that if Bliar does stand down next year and Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister he might call a snap election in late 2007 or early 2008 to take advantage of any good will he has in hand – or before people get to see that he’s actually worse than the last guy. (Interpretation open to debate based on your degree of cynicism!)
Alternatively, if the opposition parties manage to defeat the government on substantive Commons issues, ie: a de facto vote of no confidence, this pretty much means that a General Election has to be called.
Your recent electoral changes would almost certainly have triggered such an election here.
Cheers.
If you know impeachment does not inherently lead to removal from office — then what the hëll is your reservation against impeachment?
Bill, my post was not meant as a criticism of you. I have full faith in your commitment to ignore any attempt of he who must not be named to goad you into a flame war by reading your statements out of context. If anybody is at fault, it is me by reacting at all to the decontextualizer’s post. I’m back to ignoring, it works well.
—————–
Peter J Poole, I believe that there is distinction to be made between two issues. It’s a thin but important line.
1) Elected officials who commit high crimes.
2) Elected officials who are doing a bad job.
The US constitution deals with the first case. It assumes that an elected official who takes bribes or commits treason, or commits other high crimes, cannot remain in office and must be removed. This is obvious and agreed.
In the second case you have an elected official who is considered by some or even most of the electorate to be doing a bad job. They are sorry that he ever got elected. In some systems a person like that can be forced to hold elections (in wehich hie is likely to lose), or resign, by a vote of no confidence, or just by massive protest. As I understand it this option does not exist in the US constitution in the case of the president.
And then you have the third version, in which a party (say the Republican), doesn’t like the an elected official (let’s call him Bill), and since they don’t like his policies and don’t want to wait for the next elections, they try to remove him by a dishonest appeal to judicial tools, namely impeachment. In this system you use litigation to overturn electoral results you do not like. This system has a long history, and was actually often used in the ancient Athenian democracy, in which different politicians knocked each other out or weakened each other by bring each other to court on different issues.
So basically you have three different questions:
1) A legal question — Did Bush commit an impeachable crime?
2) A constitutional question — should the constitution be amended to offer some system of no confidence?
3) A normative question — Do you want to live in a country in which the two parties will try to knock out each other president by using litigation and impeachment as a political tool.
I don’t have the answer to the first question since I don’t know the law or the evidence well enough.
As for the second question, from my experience both systems have faults, but it is up to the American people to decide if a constitutional change is necessary.
As for the third question, I personaly don’t think it is a good idea, but again, I’m not an American, so it’s not up to me.
I just want to make sure you understand the questions and the distinction between them.
context, n.
I’m not the one who accused English Peter of denying imperfections in English culture. Where was your outrage at interpretations taken out of context then?
If you review my posts, you will see I’ve been including the quotes I refer to. If you can find an instance where I’ve excluded a part of the discourse that surrounded such a quote crucial to its interpretation, do so. Make it a first.
Otherwise, you persist in making an accusation you cannot substantiate, and you aren’t even applying your “principles” to where it obviously qualifies. What choice do you give me other than to call you on your chickenshit?
Peter J. Poole: I knew what you meant when you said “please God.” I was just having a bit of fun. 🙂
Micha, impeachment is not a “judicial tool,” but a legislative one. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach. If a member of the executive or judiciary branch is impeached, the Senate then tries them and holds a vote to decide whether to remove them from office.
I do not believe the U.S. Constitution should be amended to allow for recall elections or votes of no confidence. Our system may not be perfect, but it does avoid the crises that can occur in parliamentary systems when no one party gains a clear majority.
I also do not believe impeachment should be used as a weapon against unpopular presidents. It was wrong to do it to Clinton, and I believe under current circumstances it would be wrong to do it to Bush. Accusations that he overstepped his Constitutional authority, or led us into war in Iraq under pretext, do not qualify in my view because they issues open to interpretation. If credible accusations surfaced about Bush taking a bribe, or knowingly withholding evidence that Iraq wasn’t a threat to us, that would be different.
If you know impeachment does not inherently lead to removal from office, then what is your reservation against impeachment?
Well, that’s what you and Bill Mulligan get for lowering the standards of discourse.
Take a look at the cheap shots you issued when I had yet to address either of you:
…
If you weren’t a pair of moral cretins, trying to dress yourselves in a nobility you obviously aren’t qualified for, maybe I wouldn’t have to correct your inaccuracies with the severity of a 16-year-old beating his genitals.
Moving on – please God – one thing you could clarify for me: are you stuck with the four year fixed term between elections or could an election theoretically be called earlier? By the ruling party?
Personally I prefer the 4 years your stuck with them approach than the possibility of having to go through these elections every time there is a no confidence vote. It would just get tiring and, looking at how some of the parlimentary systems have ended up with elections every time you turn your head, I don’t think we could take it.
Many presidents with overall good records have had serious dips and valleys that might have ended their careers early had we such a setup. Bill Clinton was at such a low ebb after the 94 elections that there were serious liberal pundits who suggested he should announce early on that he would be a one termer and let Al Gore try to salvage the team. (obviously that turned out to be unnecessary).
There are good and bad points to any system but I see no pressing need to change ours. It would be an interesting experiment to try but of course you can’t easily experiment with an entire society.
Bill Mulligan, my good friend, your response to you-know-who was relatively mild. But in light of what happened before, our actions are going to be looked at under the proverbial microscope. Fair? Perhaps not. But it’s the way of the world.
Eh, I’ll take your earlier advice and just correct him when A-he’s wrong and B- I give a rat’s ášš. Expect more of A than B.
Alternatively, if the opposition parties manage to defeat the government on substantive Commons issues, ie: a de facto vote of no confidence, this pretty much means that a General Election has to be called.
I’m curious, what counts as a substantive Commons issue? How easy is it to call a vote of no confidence?
I guess my one fear would be that such a system would either encourage very little initiative (for fear of failure) or maybe result in perfectly ok governments being tossed on their keisters for reasons that they had little control over (like most economic situations which, I contend, governments tend to get way to much blame and/or credit for).
But I don’t think the problems either of our countries face in the near future will have much bearing on these particular details of governance.
Micha, I’m not at all certain that your assesment of the Clinton impeachment is entirely fair but I think it’s correct to say that his non-removal was justified. Really, was the whole thing all that bad an outcome? Clinton survived with his popularity possibly enhanced but at the same time it’s safe to say that any subsequent president will be very very unlikely to lie to a Grand jury again. A win/win situation if you’re a glass half full kind of guy.
Let’s see. Anyone else worth responding to….nope.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 16, 2006 12:34 AM
Personally I prefer the 4 years your stuck with them approach than the possibility of having to go through these elections every time there is a no confidence vote. It would just get tiring and, looking at how some of the parlimentary systems have ended up with elections every time you turn your head, I don’t think we could take it.
Actually, an even greater danger presented by the parliamentary system is the one I alluded to earlier: one in which no party gains a clear majority in a parliamentary election. The chief executive in a parliamentary system is chosen not by the general populace but by the majority party in parliament. If no one party holds the majority, this can throw the government into crisis. While this is usually resolved by two or more parties forming a coalition, this has its downside as well: fringe parties can gain undue influence when a coalition is needed to create a majority.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 16, 2006 12:34 AM
Micha, I’m not at all certain that your assesment of the Clinton impeachment is entirely fair but I think it’s correct to say that his non-removal was justified. Really, was the whole thing all that bad an outcome?
Yes, on many levels. First, the impeachment proceedings accelerated the erosion of the barrier between what is private and what is public. Yes, Clinton lied about his affair in court but the question should never have been asked. It was irrelevant to the politically motivated and legally meritless Paula Jone case, and also irrelevant to judging him as a president. The trend toward conflating the public and the private is damaging this nation, and the impeachment proceedings helped this societal cancer metastasize.
Second, the impeachment proceedings cost millions of dollars and distracted our government from more important issues. During a “Frontline” special, one of Clinton’s cabinet members revealed that during the impeachment mess Clinton had received good intel that the military had a bead on Bin Laden’s location. If Clinton had called a military strike quickly, we might have nailed the S.O.B. But the president was afraid that if the operation went sour, people would throw more “Wag the Dog” accusations at him, so he chose not to pull the trigger.
Third, the impeachment proceedings further aggravated the “gotcha” mentality in Washington. If Clinton hadn’t been impeached, I doubt we’d be hearing much talk about whether to impeach Bush.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 16, 2006 12:34 AM
Clinton survived with his popularity possibly enhanced but at the same time it’s safe to say that any subsequent president will be very very unlikely to lie to a Grand jury again.
That’s assuming everyone learns the lessons history has to teach us. I think that’s a bad assumption. The Vietnam War is still relatively fresh in our national consciousness, yet George W. Bush repeated many of the same mistakes in taking us to war against Iraq.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 16, 2006 12:34 AM
Let’s see. Anyone else worth responding to….nope.
Not even… the squirrels?
“Micha, impeachment is not a “judicial tool,” but a legislative one. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach. If a member of the executive or judiciary branch is impeached, the Senate then tries them and holds a vote to decide whether to remove them from office.”
I think I understand how your system of impeachment works. The important distinction here, I think, is between crime by an elected president — in principal at least a legal issue — which is addressed by the tool of impeachment; and bad performance by a president — which is an executive and legislative issue — which, in your system, is addressed by the Congress using its legislative and oversight powers in order to get the president to change his policies.
“Micha, I’m not at all certain that your assesment of the Clinton impeachment is entirely fair but I think it’s correct to say that his non-removal was justified. Really, was the whole thing all that bad an outcome? Clinton survived with his popularity possibly enhanced but at the same time it’s safe to say that any subsequent president will be very very unlikely to lie to a Grand jury again. A win/win situation if you’re a glass half full kind of guy.”
Hypothetically it could be said that censuring Clinton for lying on issue without actually removing him from office could be considered a good situation, since Clinton did something wrong, but should have been allowed to continue doing the job he was elected to do. But it seems to me that what happened was that a process to remove an elected president from office was initiated in bad faith and without good legal merit, resulting in a debasement of the political and legal process.
The truth is that I probably don’t know the specifics of this case or the American system well enough to address this issue. So all I can do is lay down the basic principles underlying the specific issues and let you decide.
To me it mostly seemed that Clinton was wasting his time on an unnecessary legal issue when he should have been doing more important things.
While this is usually resolved by two or more parties forming a coalition, this has its downside as well: fringe parties can gain undue influence when a coalition is needed to create a majority.
Of course under our current system it’s winner take all so fringe parties never amount to anything. Which I like. It’s bad enough when a shmuck like David Duke gets on the ballot but we all know he won’t win. Under a different system it’s possible to end up with actual representatives from the Crazy Nazi Party. Hëll, the Squirrels might get in there. And as you say, they may hold the balance of power. I like it better this way, when we can just ignore them.
Yes, Clinton lied about his affair in court but the question should never have been asked.
Yeah but that’s not a call you get to make on the witness stand. Even if you’re president.
I think part of the problem is the whole “high crimes and misdemeanors” aspect of impeachment. What, pray tell, is a “high misdemeanor”??? I’ve seen some people who say that nothing less than treason or bribery should apply but I disagree. Still, you don’t want the president taken out for traffic violations. It would be nice if we could get a preemptive ruling from the Supreme Court on just what IS an impeachable offence.
To me it mostly seemed that Clinton was wasting his time on an unnecessary legal issue when he should have been doing more important things.
Clinton denies emphatically that the impeachment in any way shape or form stopped him from going after Al Qeada. And if Bill is correct that he actually declined to take out Bin Laden because of fear of political consequences then he should have resigned and let Al Gore finish the job. (Extra added bonus for Democrats–Gore would have then easily beaten Bush.)
But we could go around on these arguments forever. I’ve come to appreciate Bill Clinton more and more thesedays, especially when you compare him to certain other ex-presidents but I just don’t feel too sorry for him on the impeachment mess.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at December 16, 2006 10:08 AM
Yeah but that’s not a call you get to make on the witness stand. Even if you’re president.
No argument there. Still, it doesn’t logically follow that the appropriate remedy for Clinton’s lie was impeachment. He was found in contempt of court by the judge overseeing the Paula Jones abuse of process masquerading as a court case. I think that penalty was far more appropriate than impeachment and an attempt to remove him from office.
Put another way: jaywalking is against the law. Therefore, it is a crime. It does not logically follow that jaywalkers should be sentenced to life in prison for that crime. There are other remedies that are more appropriate.
Various replies to various comments, sorry but I don’t have time at the moment to fanny about with inserting the quotes of who said which bit of what, where…
Micha:
1) Officials who commit crimes – impeach ’em. Most systems include lying to or misleading the house as a high crime. If there is accusation and/or evidence of crime, investigate. One thing that’s doing my ‘ead in is this concept that it’s *optional* as to whether or not you apply the law to an instance.
2) “Doing a bad job” – that just means you disagree with what they’re doing, so wait until the next election. (There is – arguably – already a vote of no confidence option, which is kind of what just happened with both houses going to the opposition party, leaving GWB as a ‘lame duck’ for two years. The fine tuning would be to put the duck’s party on the voting block today instead of waiting two years. I honestly don’t know enough about the US system to say if that would be a good or bad change)
3) “A normative question — Do you want to live in a country in which the two parties will try to knock out each other president by using litigation and impeachment as a political tool.”
I think I’d marginally prefer it to a country where there is a gentleman’s agreement NOT to litigate and or impeach when there are grounds whereby you should… My personal feeling is that politicians get away with a lot of crap because people – in and out of power – let them. This of course is the strength and weakness of democracy: that we will always get exactly the government we deserve. 🙂
On t’other hand, I’m reminded of the old farm adage about not getting milk from a cow by turning the cow into hamburger, but that it’s surprising how much milk you’ll get from the cow once you convince it that you’re *willing* to turn it into hamburger.
Meanwhile..
Someone mentioned elections which result in no clear cut winner and lead to coalition government. If memory serves, we had that back in 1967 and Harold Wilson (Labour, allied with the Liberals) took the country back to the polls three months later and won a workable majority. I can respect him for doing that, because he could have lost, big time…
Agh.. out of time, out of here!
Cheers.
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 16, 2006 11:14 AM
1) Officials who commit crimes – impeach ’em. Most systems include lying to or misleading the house as a high crime. If there is accusation and/or evidence of crime, investigate.
No one is saying otherwise. The question is whether or not there’s evidence that George W. Bush has committed a crime. It’s really stretching it to say that illegal wiretapping in violation of the Constitution qualifies — because the Constitution has always been open to interpretation. If we begin impeaching presidents every time the party in power in Congress believes the president has overstepped his authority, the government could become paralyzed. Besides, in the U.S. there’s another remedy: the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court already ruled against the Bush administration with respect to its denial of due process to “illegal non-combatants” being held prisoner at Guantanamo and elsewhere.
Impeachment should be a last resort.
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 16, 2006 11:14 AM
One thing that’s doing my ‘ead in is this concept that it’s *optional* as to whether or not you apply the law to an instance.
Except that no one is saying that except you. The Constitution is deliberately vague about the circumstances in which a president should be impeached. Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution states that the president, vice president, and all “civil officers” will be removed from office upon being impeached for, and convicted of, bribery, treason, and other “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The Constitution doesn’t provide any guidance as to the definition of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Hence my analogy in a prior post: the impeachment process is like a pair of scissors. You CAN do a lot of things with scissors, but that doesn’t mean you SHOULD do all of those things. You have to exercise good judgment with scissors — and with impeachment.
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 16, 2006 11:14 AM
I think I’d marginally prefer it to a country where there is a gentleman’s agreement NOT to litigate and or impeach when there are grounds whereby you should… My personal feeling is that politicians get away with a lot of crap because people – in and out of power – let them. This of course is the strength and weakness of democracy: that we will always get exactly the government we deserve. 🙂
There is no such “gentleman’s agreement.” There is merely the recognition that undoing an election is a very grave matter with serious repercussions. Or at least there was until the farce that was the impeachment and trial of Clinton.
As I have pointed out, the idea that we must either impeach or let people get away with something is a false dilemma. There are other remedies for presidential misdeeds besides impeachment.
Politicians in the U.S. don’t get away with crap because we are too fearful of impeachment. They get away with crap because much of the electorate doesn’t care enough to make an informed vote — or in some cases any vote whatsoever.
Posted by: Peter J Poole at December 16, 2006 11:14 AM
Someone mentioned elections which result in no clear cut winner and lead to coalition government. If memory serves, we had that back in 1967 and Harold Wilson (Labour, allied with the Liberals) took the country back to the polls three months later and won a workable majority. I can respect him for doing that, because he could have lost, big time…
I was the one who mentioned the problem with multi-party parliamentary elections. I think the story you related bolsters my point about the parliamentary system, because things could have gone the other way. A failure of any party to win a clear majority could force a coalition with lunatic fringe parties… or, if no one is able to form a coalition, put the government into crisis.
Our system is not perfect but I like it better than the parliamentary system.
I second what Bill said above.
There’s another question that’s been bothering me. Obviously Bush went to congress and presented to them information in order to convince them to support a war in Iraq. The information was wrong, either because he deliberatly lied or because he misinterpreted the information, or the information he had was wronng. I don’t know. The question is, doesn’t the Congress have ways to get the raw data or to do their own analysis of the data, or at least have access to different opinions inside the intelligence community? Or are they dependant completely on the information presernted to them by the President the way he spins it?
A lot of the info is available to congress especially those onthe intelligence comittees. there’s a lot of posturing on both sides but that’s the truth.
There’s also the fact that reports are seldom presented in a “This is the absolute truth without any doubt” format. When someone says that British intelligence has learned that Iraq has sought out uranium in Africa they are telling the truth, even though the evidence for the accuracy of that knowledge is now suspect.
The trick is being able to accurately weed out the good information from the merely speculative (and be willing to take the heat later from armchair generals if you get it wrong).
Bill Mulligan–I have to take exception to a few things you said up there. If Clinton HAD resigned and Gore did the job, most people back then wouldn’t have seen the President Getting Bin Laden, they would’ve seen the President bombing an encampment(or was it actually a village? I ferget.) in order to take out Some Guy They May Have Heard Of. At that point, Bin Laden didn’t have, for lack of a better phrase, the public face that he’s had since 2001. Yeah, people had heard of him after the garage bombing, but I don’t think most people would’ve made the connection. And as I recall from one of the places I saw(don’t know whether I read it or saw it someplace) there were non-combatants, IE, women and children, around Bin Laden at the time. So, I don’t know that Gore would’ve had the easy time in the election against the Guy That Everyone Wants To Have A Beer With.
Now, if I could stick my Celtic nose in on Congress and their intelligence sources and interpretation, I can’t fault them TOO much for going along with things after 2001. There was a HUGE feeling of both patriotism and paranoia, and those two combined could lead to looking at your data and saying, “Maybe I DID interpret this wrong.” Also, everyone was calling out for action, and in the middle of everyone around you yelling that you did NOTHING to prevent any of this, you’re going to take an action. Unfortunately, that action is more likely to be a knee jerk REaction, than something constructive. Still, I think they should’ve checked the data more closely, but then they run the risk of fulfilling the saying about beurocracies never accomplishing anything.
And put yourself in their position: there is anecdotal evidence that Iraq is trying to buy uranium from Niger. (Even though one of the documents purporting this has been shown to be a forgery the British STILL insist that there is evidence that this was the case). You, Congressman Scullion, decide that the evidence is not good enough for action. A year later Baltimore becomes known as The radioactive Hole Formerly Known As Baltimore. How puny will your claims that “Hey, the evidence just didn’t meet my high standards” sound then?
(And it raises an interesting point–what IS the percentage of risk that tips the balance? They say there’s only a .03% chance that some asteroid may hit us in 2028. Pretty small chance. But the result would be equal to 2 million Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. Pretty bad.
When the potential results are so catastrophic even a small risk becomes worth reacting to. But not all. That’s the problem.
Oh I know that Bin Laden was hardly on the public’s radar back then. But Gore would have won had he been president for a year or two (I’m assuming that in that time he did not do anything monstrously stupid or unpopular.) He came within a hair of winning as it was and with the extra power of the actual presidency and without Clinton as a distraction one can safely assume he would have easily taken the victory.
This is entirely speculative, of course, and when you make assumptions you make an ášš of you and umptions.
Pitiful.
Well, Congressman Mulligan, representative of Squirrelsville, NC, I’d do what I’d hope a lot of elected types would do, I’d try to investigate further. I’d use whatever influence(not influenza, smart ášš) I had as rep of Photoniantrekkiejoeland to see if ANY of it could be verified. But therein lies the rub. How far do you go to prove something DOESN’T exsist?
Now, for these Brits–if ONE of these documents has been proven false, does that mean ALL of them are? It’s kinda like guilt, er, falseness by association. Like I’ve said before, absence of evidence doesn’t necessarily mean evidence of absence. You just never KNOW when parapsychology research will come in handy.
As for the percentages of risk–I don’t know that that’s something that can really be quantified. We have to stay on our guard, but not SO on our guard that the Bad Guys look like they’re everywhere and Senator McCarthy’s ghost starts snickering. Each case has to be examined as itself, I think, and evaluated on it’s own merits. IS there a standardized test for threats? Are there number two pencils involved?
But in a case like I talked about, where everyone is yelling for action, I think SOMEONE needs to stand up and say “Maybe we should take just a SEC and think about this before we screw this up and people call us silly.” Unfortunately, the kind of environment these representatives find themselves in doesn’t allow for much speaking out. Someone should do a study on the effects of peer pressure on our elected leaders.
“Photoniantrekkiejoeland”
Sounds like mine kind of place. 😀
“And put yourself in their position: there is anecdotal evidence that Iraq is trying to buy uranium from Niger. (Even though one of the documents purporting this has been shown to be a forgery the British STILL insist that there is evidence that this was the case). You, Congressman Scullion, decide that the evidence is not good enough for action. A year later Baltimore becomes known as The radioactive Hole Formerly Known As Baltimore. How puny will your claims that “Hey, the evidence just didn’t meet my high standards” sound then?”
Depends on what side of the isle Congressman Scullion is on and what side of the isle most people see themselves on. We went through this with Bush and 9/11. There were tons of alerts and warnings that crossed Bush’s desk and the desks of his top people that screamed to the high heavens that something big was about to happen and who was about to do it. Most people, at the time that the democrats were making the most noise about that, were behind Bush and his actions in Afghanistan and Iraq and were happy to give Bush a pass.
Thing is, both Bush and “Congressman Scullion” do deserve somewhat of a pass on it. They get hundreds of terror warnings and security memos each week in Washington. Tons of them turn out to crap.
We get roughly five to ten “law enforcement only” warnings for each one that most of you see on the news in any given month. We get a few extra ones here and there as well because Richmond is the home of our Capitol Building, our Governor, our General Assembly and the public nerve centers of our state systems. 95% of them turn out to be worthless. Even if we had the money and manpower to put the Richmond area under high security restrictions for every bogus warning that came down the pike, the residents would revolt.
Same thing with the federal guys. There’s no way that they can act on every warning that comes their way and, due to the worthless nature of most the warnings, they shouldn’t anyhow. They don’t have the money, time or manpower to do that and the American people wouldn’t react well to it. And I’m talking more of public disinterest then revolt.
Remember 2003 and 2004 as the country was running up to the ’04 election? We were getting a new terror warning every other minute. “High risk” cities were thrown under higher color codes then the rest of the country and we got weekly news appearances from the head of Homeland Security. Ðámņëd near every “threat” turned out to be based on bad or discredited Intel. What was the result? We had a frustrated public, people were putting less and less faith in the system designed to warn or protect us, many claimed that this was (quite possibly rightly due to the instantaneous dropping of all of this by December of ’04) just Bush and Rove playing the politics of fear and most of the public got to the point that they wouldn’t believe a new warning or alert if God himself had it delivered on fancy stone tablets.
And that was with them acting on only a fraction of what was coming across their desks.
Depending on the mood of the country and the people at the time, Congressman Scullion, like Bush and company, would likely get a pass.
“But in a case like I talked about, where everyone is yelling for action, I think SOMEONE needs to stand up and say “Maybe we should take just a SEC and think about this before we screw this up and people call us silly.””
They do. That’s why you hear about less of these things then I do, I get details on nowhere near what my federal counterparts get and they see far less then the guys who collect the stuff to begin with. And no one can share information or talk about about the things that are done right (at least not for years afterward) and trouble that is headed off. That’s the royal b***h about intelligence. If nothing happens due to your hard work that the general public doesn’t know about, nobody cares. If something huge does happen, if that one attempt out of one thousand attempts slips past you for any reason, well, then you and those in power should have known about it and done something to stop it.
And then we blog about it from our comfy couches for years afterward.
🙂
Jerry, you make some valid points – it can be hellishly difficult to sift through vast amounts of data looking for a solid piece of information, and we are all posting with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight.
On t’other hand, people are in the position where that’s what they do, day in, day out… So where does the buck stop if they get it wrong? How many babies is the midwife allowed to drop? How may countries do you get to invade? Time was, if a politician did screw up that badly – even having acted in good faith – they resigned.
Also, I’d suggest there’s a world of difference between the defensive ‘which terror alerts do we act on’ question and the agressive ‘OK, let’s invade Iraq’ decision. That – to me – implies a different level of evidence being required.
Again and again, we seem to keep hearing testimony to the effect that our leaders had – for whatever reasons – decided to invade Iraq and that they then cherry picked the reports, intel and evidence that made a case for war.
(The latest chunks are still hitting the fan over here :
“Diplomat’s suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war
Friday, December 15, 2006
By Colin Brown and Andy McSmith
The Government’s case for going to war in Iraq has been torn apart by the publication of previously suppressed evidence that Tony Blair lied over Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.”
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2077052.ece )
They may have wanted to invade Iraq because they personally believed it was the right thing to do to defend us from terrorism, but if they were ‘economical with the truth’ when presenting the case for war, that means they subverted the opportunity for cooler heads to prevail… Again, where does the buck stop on that one?
The initial question posed was “Should Bush be impeached?”
If only to give him a chance to exhonorate himself, “Hëll, Yes!”
Cheers.
Peter J. Poole: My last post to you was still a bit… edgier than intended. Sorry. It’s really not my intention to be combative. To me, disagreements don’t have to be personal. They can be opportunities to test the strength of your own ideas, and to learn from others. Or, to put it more simply: it’s nothing personal, mate. 🙂
Jerry C: Thanks for contributing a very valuable real-world perspective to this discussion. Oh, and thanks for doing the job you do. And stay safe, my friend.
Everyone: I am going to go to Hëll for starting this silly running joke about squirrels that has now taken on a life of its own. I just know it. That, or I’m going to get mauled by squirrels.
First off, Jerry–I always FIGURED there was more going on than anyone knew. See, my dad used to work for the Army, had top secret clearance(which I have to admit thinking was kinda cool) and I figured there was stuff going on that nobody could know about even BEFORE that Tommy Lee Jones line in MIB. See, my thinking was, if a transportation manager like my dad needed clearance, the wouldn’t just give it to him to impress his son and scare the hëll out of his friends when they got called for background.
Chadwick–you’re welcome any time, just remember the requisite two liter of Cherry Coke, and don’t call me Bhodi around my wife. She HATES that.
Bill-yeah, straight to Hëll. There’s even a special place for They Who Start Running Rodent Jokes As Trollbashing.
Peter J. Poole–good points, although that baby-midwife dropping thing made my stomach turn. I have to wonder, had the evidence NOT been cherry-picked, just presented with “We think this is a really good idea,” would there be the resistance to the war there is now?
Jerry C– good points all.
Bill Myers–if anything DOES happen to you involving squirrels, expect to see the word “ironic” in the obituary. That’s never a good thing.
That’s why you allow the UN to continue their weapons inspections.
The pass was conditional, and most democrats voted against giving it to him.
“On t’other hand, people are in the position where that’s what they do, day in, day out… So where does the buck stop if they get it wrong? How many babies is the midwife allowed to drop? How may countries do you get to invade?”
“Also, I’d suggest there’s a world of difference between the defensive ‘which terror alerts do we act on’ question and the agressive ‘OK, let’s invade Iraq’ decision.”
“The initial question posed was “Should Bush be impeached?”
If only to give him a chance to exhonorate himself, “Hëll, Yes!””
They get dámņ few and there is a difference. I was posting mostly to Bill Mulligan’s hypothetical scenario involving Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, Congressman Scullion’s lack of action, the people’s reaction to his inaction and some of the unnecessary flack that the people in the Intel game catch from all sides in the various debates.
Bush and his actions get (and have gotten) a whole other level of debate. Anybody that has posted here for a while now knows that I feel Bush and crew can be argued to have been negligent prior to 9/11 by the sum total of their decisions and inactions and that their tactics to get America behind a war with Iraq (cherry picked Intel, fear mongering and the smearing of political opposition by themselves or their voices in the media) was reprehensible.
Much of that and a whole lot more (looping back to the point of whether or not to impeach Bush) are the reasons why I can understand the desire of many to push for impeachment. As a matter of fact, it’s actually very hard for me to argue that he shouldn’t be impeached. My whole desire to not go with impeachment at this point is based on what my POV says are the most important priorities and what the best political leverage tools are to whack Bush upside the head with to get him to go where he needs to go.
You may note that I’ve never said that we should flat out take impeachment off the table or never see it as an option. My point has always been that I don’t agree with impeachment being needed right now (even if I may have failed to be 100% clear on that) and that jumping the gun pointlessly may throw out valuable opportunities. And, yes, IF those tools and opportunities begin to present themselves and IF they show signs of being effective, then maybe we don’t impeach the silly little twit at all.
I look at it as, God help us all again, choosing the lesser of several evils. The Democrats can’t let Bush just keep chugging along as he has been because he’ll continue to do too much damage to everything he touches. I don’t think they can afford the time wasted or the political support lost by initiating impeachment now. Especially since I think that the attempt will come up short and they’ll just end up with a spiteful and vengeful Bush. My POV says that their best play may be using the threat of impeachment to leverage Bush and only pulling that trigger when/if Bush leaves them absolutely no choice.
Besides, the extra time may give the odd investigation or two to come up with something a little more airtight and less easily deflected and spun then much of what is being thrown at Bush now. Then, if Bush still flat refuses to do anything like the right thing, he can be hit with a far more likely successful impeachment attempt and we see where things go from there.
“Oh, and thanks for doing the job you do.”
Oh, stop already. You’re making me blush.
:p
Sean,
Yeah, my dad did intelligence work while he was in the Navy. My mom used to say that dinner conversation with him (I wasn’t born yet) was always a dead end when it came to work.
(Dad comes home after 10 to 12 hour day. He looks tired and frustrated.)
Mom: Hi, honey. Anything interesting happen today?
Dad: No.
Mom: Anything you can talk about?
Dad: No.
Now, repeat this every night for YEARS to come. She was so happy when he left that stuff behind.
Jerry C & Sean: My Dad was in the army in the ’60s. He was ROTC, so he was lucky enough to be stationed in Germany. This was during the cold war, and he had to handle a lot of highly classified documents.
One day my mother playfully picked up a briefcase my Dad carried around and asked, “What would happen if I opened this?”
He replied, “Well, I suppose I’d have to shoot you.”
Now that I think about it, that’s the same response my Dad gave when, as a teenager, I asked him the smart-alecky question, “Oh, yeah? And what would you do if I DID get a girl pregnant?”
Well, Bill, keep your dad real far away from me. I don’t need someone shooting at me. I just found out a few hours ago that I got a girl pregnant. Two and a half years of hard work and lots of practice paid off. My wife went and uttered those two little words.
I’m going to be a dad.
God help me.
Impeach him, absolutely. The precedents Bush sets if he’s not punished will come back on us in due time. Impeachment would be a start to the Constitution reconstruction process.
The things Bush has done aren’t just impeachable offenses. Many of them or blatant crimes that carry defined prison terms. So… People just don’t like to see their president as an inmate, I guess. He’s still getting away with so much, even if he is impeached.
Hey, Jerry C, congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful father. And don’t worry about mine shooting you. He couldn’t be bothered. You’re not related and therefore you are not his problem. 🙂
Jerry–good job, man! First one? Talk about pressure, now you have to get her a ÐÃMN fine Christmas present.
Jerry: congratulations man! Trust me, you have no idea at all how much your world is going to change..!
Bill “Squirrels” Myers: If I ever take it personally, you’ll know. Trust me on that one too 😛
All: I use the full name, because I think it’s right that I do so if I’m going to post opinions.
For brevity’s sake I also answer to PJP though.
(Downside of having a common Christian name – I once worked with two other guys called Peter. It used to baffle the bejasus out of clients when I was onsite with them and called the office to say “Hi Peter, it’s Peter, is Peter there?” )
Meanwhile:
Sean, you said:
“I have to wonder, had the evidence NOT been cherry-picked, just presented with “We think this is a really good idea,” would there be the resistance to the war there is now?”
I think there might be less confusion, second guessing and finger pointing about how we got to where we are, and that might give us a better chance of figuring out where the Hëll we go from here…
Not sure how clearly I can articulate this, but on some level I think one of the worst things about the current situation is how we’ve inch by inch lost whatever moral high ground we thought/hoped/believed we might have had going into the situation. I don’t know how that can be squared away, least of all if your man does get backing to ‘double up’ and put more troops and firepower in to ‘crush the insurgents’…
Cheers.
Congratulations Jerry, to you and your wife.
Jerry, congratulations!
Are you looking for some good name suggestions? We’re here to help! (keeping in mind that anyone who would entrust me with the naming of their child should be barred from parenthood).
That’s a great Christmas present.
Two and a half years of hard work and lots of practice paid off.
Heh. “hard work.” Yeah, but the benefits are great.
I’m not sure squirrel is a good name.
I’m not sure Lennie is a good name, either.
Congrats, Jerry! After close to 14 months of watching my first, I can say it’s been a joy (despite times like this morning, where he inexplicable wakes up sobbing…but even then, he’s cute).
But, just one thing…your wife tells you those two words…”I’m going to be a dad…”
First, that’s more than two words. And second…your wife is going to call herself “dad?” I’m confused…. 😉
I’m not sure squirrel is a good name.
Some of my best friends are squirrels. You have insulted their honor! Shame on you! :p
OMFG:
Here’s DailyKos citing the LA and NY Times reporting on a Iraqi ex-minister sentenced to 2 years prison getting busted out by US security contractors:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/20/11423/772
He says no one stopped him on his way to the airport because Iraq is governed by people who won’t leave the green zone. He’s a US citizen and has no reservation against returning to Chicago.
Here’s a photo of the fugitive with President Bush off of the official White House site:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030922-8.html
Just when you think it can’t possibly get worse, it does.
Jerry, congrats brother! Welcome to the jungle. My sweetie is due Feb. 14-19. Squirrel is not a completely heinous tag. My in-laws are having a cat over Charles Horst (named for his grandfathers, maternal-paternal respectively). Do a brother a solid, let me use squirrel as a shut up to my mom in law, pleeze?
Otherwise, remember to rub her belly, feet or whatever, and Hage Daaz is your friend!