It Is Time For "A National Inquest"

posted by John Nichols on 11/06/2007 @ 3:21pm

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In May of 1972, when then-President Richard Nixon was riding as high as he ever would politically, anti-war activists attempted to place an advertisement in The New York Times urging his impeachment for illegal war making in southeast Asia.

The two-page ad, headlined "A Resolution to Impeach Richard M. Nixon," called on the newspaper's readers to support House Resolution 976, which had been proposed several weeks earlier by Michigan Congressman John Conyers and several other liberal representatives.

Nixon and his aides went ballistic. The same political operation that was busy orchestrating the Watergate crimes celebrated a brief attempt by pressmen at the Times to block the printing of the paper including the ad. When the censorship failed, Nixon's political henchmen made sure that Times executives were inundated with letters condemning the very mention of presidential accountability as "traitorous." A Nixon aide showed up to thank the pressman for trying to prevent publication of the ad. Attorney General John Mitchell and a top Republican in the House, Gerald Ford, explicitly attacked the authors of the impeachment resolution and its supporters. And the group that placed the ad was hauled into court and accused of violating federal campaign finance laws because they had encouraged the election of House members who would pursue impeachment.

Condemnation and ridicule of those who would impeach a president in a time of war is obviously nothing new. And there will be always be political and media players who are at the ready to tell the sincere proponents of the rule of law that it is not the right time to mention impeachment. They will declare that the Constitutionally-defined process is "off the table." They will even warn, ominously, that the Republic -- or, at the very least, the prospects of the proponent's own party in a coming presidential election -- will be harmed by the exercise of patriotic duty.

That's the message Congressman Dennis Kucinich got Tuesday when the Ohio Democrat attempted to force the House to consider the articles of impeachment he has brought against Vice President Cheney. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, moved to table Kucinich's privileged resolution seeking to open a debate on the issue. So, today, it is not just a Republican White House but the leaders of a Democratic-led House who are resisting the pull of the Constitution.

What should Americans who keep faith with the Republic's best values and intents answer think about the question of whether the House should move to hold a top member of the executive branch to account? The best response is to recognize that those who raised the subject of impeaching Richard Nixon in 1972 and those who raise the subject of impeaching former Nixon aide Dick Cheney in 2007 are the keepers of an American tradition that stretches back to 1787.

That was the point made in a response to the controversy about the 1972 Times ad authored by Telford Taylor, who had served as the chief U.S. prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

"Making full allowances for the hyperboles of partisan politics, it is impossible to justify the violence of the attacks leveled by Messrs. John N. Mitchell and Gerald R. Ford against the Congressional sponsors of the Resolution (H. Res. 976) for the Impeachment of President Nixon, set forth in the advertisement printed in The Times on May 31," wrote Taylor, one of the ablest and most honorable legal thinkers of the 20th century. "It is, of course, entirely proper for anyone so disposed to contest the charges set forth in the Resolution, but to condemn them as 'revolting,' 'disgraceful,' and 'traitorous' is wholly unwarranted."

Taylor recalled that the founders of the American experiment had intended impeachment to be proposed when there was a sense in the land that a member of the executive branch had committed "an abuse or violation of some public trust." And he recalled the faith of Alexander Hamilton that the essential value of the impeachment power afforded the House was that it provided "a method of national inquest into the conduct of public men."

Noting that "such a 'national inquest' is precisely what is proposed in the Nixon impeachment resolution," Taylor argued that initiative was timely and appropriate -- as similarly well-versed scholars of the Constitution suggest today that Kucinich's articles of impeachment represent the right response to the lawlessness of Cheney and the administration the vice president has defined.

"It may well be doubted that a Congress which has been unable or unwilling to take less drastic steps to reassert its proper responsibilities for peace and war is likely to embark on the impeachment process, especially at a moment when President Nixon is riding the tide of Congressional support for his missions to Moscow and Peking," argued the Nuremberg prosecutor 35 years ago in language that is just as compelling today. "But these political realities should not be allowed to obscure the seriousness of the issues posed by the impeachment resolution, which merits full consideration by the appropriate agencies of the House of Representatives."

Telford Taylor offered the right response to those who attempted to squelch an impeachment initiative in the spring of 1972. That response is just as right in the fall of 2007.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

John Nichols is the author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

Comments (50)

Unfortunately, the times have changed and we've become a nation of well-woven victims dangling from the web of Washington corruption.

Unlike the Roman Empire, I don't see us lingering for several hundred years. The collapse will be much faster for us.

The Mike Whitney piece in Counterpunch today is a devastating summation of the signals that are blaring across the land like a four-alarm fire in a fireworks factory.

Excerpt:

Is it possible that anyone with a pulse and a minimal ability to reason couldn't see the inherent problems of building a financial edifice on the prospect that millions of first-time homeowners with bad credit history and no collateral would pay off there mortgages in a timely and responsible manner?

No. It is not possible. The real reason that the subprime swindle mushroomed into an economy-busting monster is that the markets are no longer policed by any agency that believes in intervention. The pervasive "free market" ideology rejects the notion of supervision or oversight, and as a result, the markets have become increasingly opaque and unresponsive to rules that may assure their continued credibility or even their ability to function properly.

The "supply side" avatars of deregulation have transformed the world's most vital and prosperous markets into a huckster's shell-game. All regulatory accountability has vanished along with trillions of dollars in foreign investment. What's left is a flea-market for dodgy loans, dubious over-leveraged equities and "securitized" Triple A-rated garbage.

Let's hear it for the Reagan Revolution.

What is striking is how the new "structured finance" paradigm replicates a political system which is no longer guided by principle or integrity. It is not coincidental that the same flag that flies over Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib flutters over Wall Street as well. Nor is it accidental that the same system that peddles bogus, subprime tripe to gullible investors also elevates a "waterboarding advocate" to the highest position in the Justice Department. Both phenomena emerge from the same fetid swamp.

Full text here: [counterpunch.org]

Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/06/2007 @ 3:41pm
Mr Nichols....some Nixonian history and a long quoting of Telford Taylor, but there's really only one key part--

"That's the message Congressman Dennis Kucinich got Tuesday when the Ohio Democrat attempted to force the House to consider the articles of impeachment he has brought against Vice President Cheney. It is not just a Republican White House but a Democratic Congress that is resisting the pull of the Constitution."

The circumstances are different, the crimes surely more important, but the TIME HAS COME to take the message from the last impeachment to heart and...

Move On!

It isn't going to happen in the next two months, and in two months, we'll be neck-deep into the 2008 Primaries and everybody (i.e. the majority of Americans) will be saying "So what? He (Bush or Cheney or both) will be gone in less than a year. Let's just concentrate on 2008!"

Posted by Mask at 11/06/2007 @ 3:42pm
I am among those who believe that the president and vice president should be held accountable by impeachment, but the fact remains that polls still show that the majority of Americans are opposed to it. Whether or not you want to think it sucks, as I do, Kucinich's plans for impeachment are as much a pipe dream as are his plan for his own presidency. Just a side effect of our zeitgeist, I suppose.

Posted by MATTMAN at 11/06/2007 @ 4:09pm
Posted by MATTMAN 11/06/2007 @ 4:09pm

Increasingly concerned for two views of John Nichols....and I think one MORE "impeachment is imminent" article from him will cinch it.

He's either laboring under a serious (You-Know-WSHOB'ian delusion) that "it can still happen", in direct opposition to the reality of the situation....from Pelosi and Reid's control over the House and Senate; to the rejections of impeachment by Democrats ranging from Rahm Emmanuel to Howard Dean to Russ Feingold to Al Gore; to the public legitimate (non-online) polls showing no true support for it.

Or...as some have suggested, he's trying to get a few more sales off the book.

Posted by Mask at 11/06/2007 @ 4:17pm
I know! Let's use E L E C T I O N S to change the President!

Posted by FREIHEIT 11/06/2007 @ 4:00pm

I recall a certain party that would stop at nothing to remove another president from office. They had to manufacture a perjury charge against that president in an attempt to remove him from office for lying about a blowjob under oath.

This president and his administration have lied us into a war, lied to us about the progress of that war, lied to us about who is profitting from the war, lied to us about where the oil from Iraq is going and yet they haven't been impeached yet.

Maybe you can explain to me why lying about a blowjob is a greater sin to the American people than the Iraq debacle.

We shall elect the next president, but we should kick this one's ass all the way out of the country and send him into Iraq and arm him with an M16 with no body armor and let the enemy know where he is.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/06/2007 @ 4:22pm
Posted by B_KOOL_66 11/06/2007 @ 3:41pm

Thanks for posting that.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/06/2007 @ 4:24pm
Increasingly concerned for two views of John Nichols....and I think one MORE "impeachment is imminent" article from him will cinch it. -----Posted by MASK 11/06/2007 @ 4:17pm

Seems I just got my request-

BLOG | Posted 11/06/2007 @ 4:25pm Impeachment Is (Sort Of) On The Table by John Nichols

Posted by Mask at 11/06/2007 @ 4:34pm
I know! Let's use E L E C T I O N S to change the President!

Posted by FREIHEIT 11/06/2007 @ 4:00pm

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

Posted by frosty zoom at 11/06/2007 @ 4:37pm
I've liked Kucinich even from his Detroit days when he had the guts to say no to selling off the public utilities to the for- profits. It is appropriate, timely, and just.

Hey you pragmatists out there weighing whether impeachment is a waste of time and effort, what ever happened to right and wrong? What's right/wrong? What about the legal constitutional intent open to the public? This is our recourse. You pollsters who say america does not want it, how do they know at this stage unless there is an open inquest and coverage. Then poll.

I'd say not only impeach, but, keep doors open for criminal charges after these neocons are gone. I also say that they be given over to an international tribunal to sort through the 'high crimes.'

If 'we the people' don't do it, we will be the ones judged and terrorized.

Posted by steve foster at 11/06/2007 @ 5:56pm
Sadly, there will be no inquest. The only way to hold the bums - all the bums - accountable is at the ballot box. Our government is in the hands of small minded men and women, people who have no concept whatsoever of the common weal of the republic.

The only solution is to throw this puny weaklings out and put others in their place and to repeat the process until the message gets through that ideologic purity counts for less than the principles upon which our nation is supposed to be based.

Until such time, we have government of the douchebag, by the douchebag, for the douchebag.

Posted by skeletonman at 11/06/2007 @ 6:24pm
freiheit: hugh difference in an impeachment proceeding on getting your cock sucked and trying to hide the character flaw and someone who has orchestrated an incredibly brash, illegal, and racist war that has killed more than 700,000 Iraqi, 4mi displaced, over corporate profits and future hegemony over all. Where the fk is your sense of proportion?

Posted by steve foster at 11/06/2007 @ 6:25pm
Kooksinich must have supporters for his bill. I wonder what Alcee Hastings thinks...

Posted by woodyee at 11/06/2007 @ 8:27pm
Alcee Hastings (D-FLA) tells FOX NEWS: 'Dennis Kucinich is on a quest of his own. He sees flying saucers and he acts like one, too'...

Posted by woodyee at 11/06/2007 @ 8:27pm
Never mind! I found the answer. Thanks!

Posted by woodyee at 11/06/2007 @ 8:28pm
'course, Alsee hastings has a little experience with impeachment himself...(heh,heh)

Posted by davebarlett at 11/06/2007 @ 10:16pm
"Maybe you can explain to me why lying about a blowjob is a greater sin to the American people than the Iraq debacle."

Posted by WOLFGANG1 11/06/2007 @ 4:22pm

Wolfie it aint'the bj that got slick Willy into trouble, it was the little white lie he told to a federal grand jury under oath.

Posted by ACook at 11/06/2007 @ 10:38pm
Good luck w/your (writers') strike, Mr. NICHOLS! Many readers won't notice that your two Impeachment threads are RERUNS! We won't tell!

Posted by Happy at 11/06/2007 @ 10:56pm
face it, even if the chimp lied under oath about getting a blow job. It would only be becuase the guy who gave it to him was covered under executive privledge

Posted by Will C. at 11/06/2007 @ 11:12pm
Just as not all the inmates in prison are guilty-- all the criminals in the hsuB/cHeney admin aren't innocent. To say DNA evidence doesn't matter to get an inmate free-- is like turning a blind eye to proof that the hsuB/cHeny admin committed serious crimes, simply for convenience sake. Both should be seen as an assault on any thinking person's sense of fairness and justice.

That some here lack any sense of justice per couching that absence of conscience as being 'realistic', only proves there exists in themselves a bond to a warped psychotic world; being so, deny their soul and that of others-- the knowledge of virtue and truth.

Posted by hsuBfools at 11/07/2007 @ 01:52am
You are taking opinion as fact. Clinton lied. That's a fact and it was proven. Prove what you emote about Bush. Start by getting real on the 700k number. I believe just one dead is too big a number morally. But to claim 700k dead Iraqi civilians weakens your credibility because you can't prove it. You just believe it to be true.

What you believe to be true isn't evidence enough to impeach the President of the United States. Sorry.

Posted by FREIHEIT 11/06/2007 @ 7:12pm

This country needs to do with the fictitious "executive privelege". Executive privelege is nothing more than the executive branch hiding illegal proceedings behind the publics back whether it be a dem or republican in office.

It's damn difficult to prove anything about the Bush administration when they claim executive privelege about everything. Let's get real here. These assholes won't go on record before congress because they don't want to be perjure themselves. Scooter Libby was caught in that situation and the only bandaid Bush could put on the situation was a pardon.

We should do away with executive privelege and presidential pardons of people in their administrations. Conflicts of interest are taking place in both cases. Bush is in the position of law maker, law enforcer, but of course he doesn't have to follow the laws, just make his ememies follow them.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/07/2007 @ 07:02am
"Maybe you can explain to me why lying about a blowjob is a greater sin to the American people than the Iraq debacle."

Posted by WOLFGANG1 11/06/2007 @ 4:22pm

Wolfie it aint'the bj that got slick Willy into trouble, it was the little white lie he told to a federal grand jury under oath.

Posted by ACOOK 11/06/2007 @ 10:38pm

I was merely pointing out that the offense Clinton lied about was by measure far less of an offense to the people of the United States than George W. Bush's offenses starting with using known false evidence as a means to push his country into a war with a country that didn't threaten or attack the U.S.

Maybe you W supporters can answer this. If Bush is on the up and up about firing the attorneys, then why won't they go before congress and tell them the truth, nothing but the truth, so help them GOD. Who the fuck is Bush to tell congress what is worth investigating and not? Is he the commander and judge? Is he the commander of Congress? Where do you think this administrations power should end?

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 11/07/2007 @ 07:13am
My favorite president wasn't impeached for lying about a blow job under oath. He was impeached for being a man of conscience and later telling the truth.

The republican party simply can't tolerate any president exhibiting that kind of moral behavior.

Posted by Will C. at 11/07/2007 @ 09:02am
On an associated sidebar, a former SD GOP lawmaker was just convicted of raping 2 foster children in his care - another member of the moral majority no doubt.

Posted by leftofcenter at 11/07/2007 @ 09:45am
Puts him right up there with good-old Lee Horsely (can I get a big "Hee-haw" salute)

Posted by leftofcenter at 11/07/2007 @ 09:46am
they should have impeached or at least seriously discussed/debated impeachment back in jan 05...

because with an eternal crisis constitutional interpretation, aided by the manufacturing of dire outside threats and apparant incompetance in prosecuting war against the occasional real outside threat, the only way to reign in an imperial presidency (using the necessary clause) is to use the impeachment part of the same constitution to threaten to boot them!

but the timid, tepid, cowards that make up the leadership of the democratic party, were too afraid to even openly debate such.

why not? sure its too late, but what else is there to do until jan 09?

lol...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 11/07/2007 @ 10:57am
Freiheit: facts about the Iraqi death toll were derived from the the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John's Hopkins, one of the most prestigious epidemiolgy programs in the U.S., together with the School of Medicine at Al Mustansiriya Univ. in Baghdad. Between 2002-2006 the study revealed 654,965 "excess deaths", most common reason, gunfire killing predominately males ages 15-44. The report was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet. I conservatively added another 50,000 deaths to cover the period since the report through the recent surge to bring us current.

Do you have another report with sufficient protocol to counter this study?

Here is your area of belief that is not based on processes of reasoning: you say if congress had facts to support impeachment, it would have been done. What makes you think that our house of reps will do the right thing in the face of facts? Congress has capitulated to executive tyrancy since they voted to provide the pres with the power to wage war.

I think you a have a naive faith in our gov'ts ability to act rightly when given the opportunity. If anything, the populists' ability to do what congress won't should scare the hell out off all of them. The more the incredibly opaque veils of secrecy overing both the executive branch and congress are revealed the more that all our legislators should squirm.

Posted by steve foster at 11/07/2007 @ 12:18pm
Not this Congress nor, I very much fear, many Congresses to come will have any significant input on the topic of accountability. I don't think it's too soon to admit that our pleas fall on deaf ears, and that thumb on the scale of justice is there to stay.

We hope we can at least put our faith in our voting power, but there are deaf ears everywhere. How many elections will it really take, and what are the odds of sustaining strong progressive initiatives through them all? Come on!

It seems like the only time things have really changed is when people got off their butts, not just to vote, but to stand up and be counted. I've got virtually no faith at all that's going to happen. I'm just saying I really think that's about the only thing that would help.

Posted by Donald Weed at 11/07/2007 @ 2:51pm
"Freiheit: facts about the Iraqi death toll were derived from the the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John's Hopkins..."

Posted by STEVE FOSTER 11/07/2007 @ 12:18pm

Using, I might add, statistical methodology approved and used by our own government.

Posted by drhammer at 11/07/2007 @ 2:52pm
To posit that these asshats would have been impeached by now if they could be proven guilty is simplistic to the point of comedy. It totally disregards the craven political calculus of those who now (allegedly) control the House and Senate.

Pelosi's now-infamous line about impeachment being off the table was a theft of our right to hold these criminals accountable, and a brightly illuminated example of how little our "representatives" know or care about their constituents.

Posted by drhammer at 11/07/2007 @ 3:00pm
"Hey you pragmatists out there weighing whether impeachment is a waste of time and effort, what ever happened to right and wrong?"

Posted by STEVE FOSTER 11/06/2007 @ 5:56pm

Halleluja, brother Steve.

Additionally, it could be argued that little of note will get accomplished in the remaining year anyway. The dems should find their cojones and ratchet up the hot lamps, pursuing these cockroaches into every dark corner of the administration.

Even if the exercise turns out to be anticlimactic, it might keep these scumbags busy enough that they can't keep fucking up the republic.

Posted by drhammer at 11/07/2007 @ 3:09pm
Don't resign yourselves to just voting the bastards out of office.

The Bushies can do a lot more damage between now and next November.

Posted by drhammer at 11/07/2007 @ 3:14pm
Pelosi's now-infamous line about impeachment being off the table was a theft of our right to hold these criminals accountable, and a brightly illuminated example of how little our "representatives" know or care about their constituents.

Posted by DRHAMMER 11/07/2007 @ 3:00pm

....or the constitution I might add.

Nice posting MC. A "Brightly illuminated example" is a good characterization of Pelosi's statement that is, in fact, a resounding announcement that our Republic has officially expired.

And a smashing way for the "Democrat for the horsey set" to immortalize herself in the history books.

Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/07/2007 @ 3:48pm
drhammer and bcool - right on!!

Posted by steve foster at 11/07/2007 @ 4:52pm
Posted by DRHAMMER 11/07/2007 @ 2:52pm | ignore this person

The Johns Hopkins study has been utterly debunked. Even the Study's own authors admitted as much in a CSPAN forum last year, when the guy ACTUALLY used the term "flawed but true." Only the most ardent hardcore delusional leftists use it.

I am so glad to be back and some of same old radical leftists still here. I actually thought the nation might have gone under, since KVH and others were begging for money some time ago. Capitalism is bitch isnt it?

I love America!!!!!

Posted by CPT at 11/07/2007 @ 5:46pm
On topic, impeachment is as ridiculous as it is remote. Incredible waste of time and energy, but to all extreme leftists i encourage that you put all your efforts into this venture.

:)

Posted by CPT at 11/07/2007 @ 5:52pm
Oh shit. More bad news for the terrorists, the Democrats, the lefties who write at the Nation, and loonies who lap it all up like it's gospel. Oh, wait, a General said it, so it can't be true.

Drop in Baghdad violence sustainable: general

By Dean Yates Wed Nov 7, 8:42 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A reduction in violence in Baghdad over the past few months represents a sustainable trend that will allow fewer U.S. troops to protect the Iraqi capital, a top American general said on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT

Major-General Joseph Fil, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said al Qaeda in Iraq no longer had a foothold in any part of the city of 7 million people. The group is blamed for most big car bombings that have killed thousands.

Death squad killings in Baghdad were also down 80 percent from their peak while roadside bombings had fallen 70 percent, Fil told foreign reporters without giving specific timeframes.

"I think there is going to come a day when certainly we will need less coalition troops in Baghdad," Fil said.

Asked when that would be, he said: "Already we are at a point where we'll see that as the surge forces depart the city, we'll see a natural decline in numbers and I'm very comfortable where that comes to, with that gradual attrition of forces."

U.S. President George W. Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq early this year in a last-ditch attempt to halt Iraq's slide into sectarian civil war and to give the country's feuding politicians "breathing space" to reconcile.

Most of the additional troops were deployed in and around Baghdad. Some of those units will leave the city over the coming months under a plan endorsed by Bush in September that will see U.S. troop levels in Iraq fall 20,000-30,000 by the middle of next year from around the current number of 170,000.

Fil said the drops in violence in Baghdad were sustainable.

"I do think it's sustainable and that's because first of all we're working with Iraqi forces now in really almost every corner of the city," he said.

"But I also will say Baghdad is a dangerous place and al Qaeda, although on the ropes, is not finished by any means and they will come back swinging if they are allowed to."

Posted by pontificus at 11/07/2007 @ 8:05pm
"But I also will say Baghdad is a dangerous place and al Qaeda, although on the ropes, is not finished by any means and they will come back swinging if they are allowed to."

Posted by PONTIFICUS 11/07/2007 @ 8:05pm

You betcha. They'll be back swinging just as soon as we back off the escalation, which we have to do in just 3 or 4 months. The Shiite militias will end their "truce", and we'll be off and running all over again, only with way more people who hate the American occupation. Oh yeah, the surge is working! Sorta. For now. GMAFB!

Posted by Donald Weed at 11/07/2007 @ 8:27pm
Posted by DONALD WEED 11/07/2007 @ 8:27pm

I do find it odd that for all the supposed concern for American troops and Iraq civilians that purports to be the reason for the knee-jerk Bush-loathing on this site, there seems to be little, if any, detectable relief at the precipitous drop in casualties. On the contrary, the hope seems to be that Al Quaida will rebound, kill thousands of people, thus justifying the Bush loathing. Interesting.

Posted by pontificus at 11/07/2007 @ 8:40pm
Posted by CPT 11/07/2007 @ 5:46pm

The Johns Hopkins study has been utterly debunked. Even the Study's own authors admitted as much in a CSPAN forum last year, when the guy ACTUALLY used the term "flawed but true." Only the most ardent hardcore delusional leftists use it.

I believe the new standard of proof amongst the 'intellectual elite' is 'fake but true', ala Dan Rather. It goes something like "here's my opinion, and here's some stuff I made up to prove it. You can't prove I made the stuff up, so my opinion is therefore fact." It didn't work so well with Dan, and nobody else seemed to be able to replicate Johns Hopkins numbers, either, but I don't think that troubles anybody here. Opinion, 'proven' by imaginary information is the standard on the left as a whole and at The Nation in particular.

Posted by pontificus at 11/07/2007 @ 8:51pm
Posted by PONTIFICUS 11/07/2007 @ 8:40pm

I know you want to see success. I cleared my initial angry response before clicking Submit. I want to see an end to all this on both sides, and I honestly wish I could believe your side of things. I don't, and I can't. I would like to. If you like, I'll pray you're right as long as there's the slightest hope. But if I find a way to help the troops get the hell out of there tomorrow, you bet I will!

Posted by Donald Weed at 11/07/2007 @ 10:58pm
Posted by PONTIFICUS 11/07/2007 @ 8:51pm

dammit!

get your butt on a plane to baghdad and try to see if you can survive for two minutes.

Posted by frosty zoom at 11/07/2007 @ 11:05pm
This administration appears to be deliberately driving the economy off a cliff in order to privatize the government and US assets.Impeach them and get them out of office now.

geezer

Posted by linwood at 11/08/2007 @ 08:46am
Posted by POL POT PONTI-TERRORIST 11/07/2007 @ 8:51pm

POL POT PONTI-TERRORIST,

Assuming that your parents, on whom you obviously still depend for an allowance, will allow you out to "play", got a question for you: What do you think of the census? Do you believe that is the literal population figure -- or that it is an essentially accurate quantitative estimate of something that changes every minute with each new birth and death (and similarly for Johns Hopkins investigation)?

I know you rightwingers despise the truth and what one of your own has called "the reality-based community", but can you accept statistics compiled in good faith that point to the fact that, say, the US has a larger population than say Canada or Thailand?

Moving a little further afield, tell us what is it about terrorism and violence that makes rightwing cretins like yourself stain yourselves with even more foamy salivation than the usual copious quanities? Whether it is rightwingers are shooting up abortion clinics for the "pro-life" cause, or blowing up the Murrah building, or thought leaders of the rightwing jihad crowd ranting that SF/CA/USA or a former US Senator should be targttted, or crashing jets into buildings, or going Jerry FarFuck about how America deserved this mass murderous violence (ask LVLIBERTY1 for his defense of FarFuck's thrilling over the fundys' attacks on US gayness and feminism) ... just what is it that accounts for this subhuman tendency among rightwingers to take unconditional joy in the comission of the indefensible?

Posted by John_Shaft at 11/08/2007 @ 08:49am
Dear "Steve Foster,"

Welcome! You are of course correct. Cheney, Bush, and the neocons all ought to be impeached.

"Ought to be" is of course not the same as "will be." The former is determined by moral fiber. The latter is presently determined by immoral might.

And, of course, to a neocon, "might" always makes "right." Really. They only SAY they're against big government. The expansion of government is just fine as long as it permits an equally rapid expansion of the biggest corporations and colludes with rather than regulates them.

The neocons presently cannot contain their glee about the failure of the impeachment movement, since its weakness proves that the neocons are mighty, hence "right." Get it?

Our friend "B-Kool-66" has evoked future historians, who are great friend of mine, too. I hope both we and the neocons who post here will live long enough to read what some historians have to say about the Bush era. I believe we will enjoy it -- and the neocons will hate it.

Kucinich a loony? No, future historians will wonder why all the rest of Congress failed to take seriously one of the few elected officials who understood his Constitutional responsibilities and did not shirk them.

My only concern is that if the US-American republic fails to recover from its present imperial phase, then historians here may soon no longer be able to write real history. In this case, we'll have to get real history -- and real news -- exclusively from abroad. Maybe "Frosty Zoom" will be able to provide some translations from Spanish and French. I'll help out with German. Can anybody help with Japanese?

Posted by JakobFabian at 11/08/2007 @ 08:52am
Posted by CPT 11/07/2007 @ 5:46pm

Welcome back CPT! Where were you all this time?

Posted by LVLIBERTY1 11/08/2007 @ 02:22am

TYPOCRATS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Posted by frosty zoom at 11/08/2007 @ 09:22am
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 11/08/2007 @ 02:22am | ignore this person

Been serving this GREAT nation!!!! God Bless the USA! Looney libs hate that sentiment

Posted by CPT at 11/08/2007 @ 12:10pm
Posted by B_KOOL_66 11/06/2007 @ 3:41pm | ignore this person

To all the doomsayers of gloom for the economy. Despite the gas spikes and the housing subprime lending market....the economy STILL grew 3.9% and unemployment is still low!!!!

Go figure....God Bless the USA economy

Posted by CPT at 11/08/2007 @ 12:15pm
To all the doomsayers of gloom for the economy. Despite the gas spikes and the housing subprime lending market....the economy STILL grew 3.9% and unemployment is still low!!!!

Go figure....God Bless the USA economy

Posted by CPT 11/08/2007 @ 12:15pm

Thanks for that insipid ululation of ignorance, Herr Captain Crunch.

Sail on in your blissful sea.

Posted by b_kool_66 at 11/08/2007 @ 2:13pm
You're right Jako, "ought" has a moral imperative, the ability for agents to choose and act. A common moral thread of the prophets (not profits-CPT) from the religions with the larger constituencies and the worse fundamentalisms (Christian, Islamic and Judaeism [let's not quibble over #s of Jewish adherents]) is simple: 'do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly....' Can might be overcome with a prophetic message to do right? I hope there is still opportunity to do the 'oughts' and there may be some moral fiber left in our cultures to respond to the oughts when presented. Therefore, impeachment proceedings should take place regardless of whether the Senate will capitulate to the facts or not even if it gets that far. It will give strength to the judicial request for email and other executive info not yet turned over because of executive priviledge. Maybe it will be the reps who will not get reelected because of their support of immoral might - though our electorial process is under collusion with corporatism. Certainly, the impeachment process will send a message to the rest of the world there still is a disconnect between our policies and our people.

See CPT, I love America as an ongoing struggle for a republic, something that must be refought generationally or loose ground in the fight for democracy. CPT you must benefit from unbridled corporatism since it appears that may be a major factor as to why you love america. Why do you love america CPT? Is it because you're a corporatist who has seen the time rippen? As a progressive, you know, those who took some of america back from the robber barons, your capitalist cheers disgust me as an american. I will live the rest of live to fight against the america of the priviledged corporatist rape of the world. And CPT, if you aren't rich and haven't benefitted from the current form of global capitalism, then you are just a fkg stupid lemming.(CPT - isn't the acronym a treatment code for a diagosis, ICD-9. Do you consider yourself a treatment for we foolish progressives?)

As to the supposed debuking of the Hopkins report. Do a bit more follow up than what bush and cspan had to say. You'll find the methodology used for times of war has been supported by a number other high level independent studies. You get some congressman to say things you like against a damning report, a president that immediately debunks it (just as he did with global warming), and you are as pleased as a pig in shit, not needing to dig any further. Baahhhh, baahhh, white sheep.

Pontificus, your understanding of how science works is less than remedial. The relationship between explandum and explanans and the fictional notion of absolute objectivity has been bantied about in academic circles for many decades. It is not a simple relationship as you would hope. Read a seminal work on the subject, Structures of a Scienific Revolution, by Thomas Kuhn, U of C press, 1962.

Posted by steve foster at 11/08/2007 @ 2:31pm
Yes, CPT, thank you for your service to our country. Are you still a recruiter? If so, thank you for deceiving so many impressionable young people into supporting this imperialistic war of choice.

Posted by taptaptapgop at 11/09/2007 @ 09:34am