Today In History

On March 12, 1868, the Senate began Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial.

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

(Article 2)

Impeachment Impeachment, in the U.S. and Great Britain, proceeding by a legislature for the removal from office of a public official charged with misconduct in office. Impeachment comprises both the act of formulating the accusation and the resulting trial of the charges; it is frequently but erroneously taken to mean only the removal from office of an accused public official. An impeachment trial may result in either an acquittal or in a verdict of guilty. In the latter case the impeached official is removed from office; if the charges warrant such action, the official is also remanded to the proper authorities for trial before a court.

(link)

Meyerson makes his case that the Bush Administration may be a "malevolent presidency" but it's not impeachable.

Not quite yet because while deliberately breaking the law by spying on USofA citizens without a warrant is a crime, the current make-up of the Judiciary Committee pretty much guarantees this Administration isn't going to find their feet held to the fire until all the facts come out. (Note: While I was pleasantly surprised by the outrage of Republicans initially, it seems to me that much of their outrage is dying down. As with the Patriot Act reauthorization.) (On the other hand, it could just be that the national media is getting bored of the story since meetings in committee and exchanges of memos don't make for dramatic news coverage.)

Republicans set the bar pretty low during the Clinton Administration, essentially impeaching the guy for being a popular Democrat who had sex (and as revenge for Nixon).

This is the only reason I haven't been beating the impeachment drum more loudly. I really don't want to get into a tit-for-tat exchange of impeachments for every presidential administration from now until the end of time.

Is the Bush Administration guilty of "gross misconduct" or just idiotic tunnel-vision, refusing to see that reality cannot be bent to fit their visions? (As history has so often shown the neo-cons are.) We don't know yet.

But the one thing I'm really annoyed about this morning is the idea that we can't punish the Executive Branch for actual crimes because we know Republicans will act like spoilt six year-olds in retaliation.

We don't have a single political party in this country that doesn't need dismantling and rebuilding from the ground up.

I'm going to go ponder this column that suggests our real enemy is "Market Fundamentalism" and offers the idea of a "moral economy."

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* I am willing to believe there were those who believed there was actually wrongdoing in the Clinton Administration. After all, there are those who don't see anything wrong with how the Bush Administration is running this country and it's wars. (I'm inclined to think they're the same group of people.)