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An Opening for the Constitution
July 24, 2008
Thirty-four years ago this month, when the House Judiciary Committee was considering strategies for holding a lawbreaking president to account, the most determined advocate for impeachment on the committee was a relatively junior member, 45-year-old Michigan Congressman John Conyers.
On Friday, Conyers will again participate in a Judiciary Committee examination of how best to address excesses of the executive.
Again, the prospect of impeachment will be discussed.
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Obama Sets the Right Middle East Peace Timeline
July 23, 2008
When I interviewed former President Carter about how to pursue and achieve peace in the Middle East, he made two essential points.
First: "It is possible for an American President to advance the peace process, to achieve meaningful progress. It is also necessary--more necessary now than it has ever been."
Second: To achieve meaningful progress, however, a president must start immediately.
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Obama's Global Victory Lap Has McCain Desperate
July 22, 2008
What was John McCain thinking?
Did the Republican who would be president really think that by goading Democrat Barack Obama into visiting Afghanistan and Iraq -- countries the senator from Illinois was going to have to visit as part of an image-building international tour -- he would somehow trip-up his November rival?
Was McCain under some delusion that international leaders would subtly undermine the Obama tour and thus confirm that the Republican ally of discredited lame-duck President George Bush was the only real choice to lead the United States toward a more realistic role in the world?
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Obama's Wrong Turn in Afghanistan
July 19, 2008
Running for president is a perilous endeavor. Candidates make mistakes.
And Barack Obama is making a serious mistake this weekend.
As he tours Afghanistan, the senator from Illinois says he is "more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking."
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Barack Obama, George Washington and the World
July 18, 2008
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been criticized for planning, as part of his current world tour, to meet both with Israeli and Palestinian officials in the Middle East.
Supporters of Republican John McCain, who met with the Israelis but refused to meet wit the Palestinians during a recent visit to the region, say Obama is being too even-handed in his approach.
Who is right?
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Impeachment: On the Table But Not for Consumption
July 16, 2008
Impeachment is on the table.
But Congress is not allowed to bite.
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on one of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders in the chamber have signaled that they do not want the committee -- let alone the full House -- to take a vote on impeachment.
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Barack Eisenhower vs. John McNixon
July 15, 2008
Barack Obama has begun, finally and reasonably firmly, to clarify his stance regarding the scope and character of the ongoing U.S. role in Iraq. In so doing, the senator from Illinois has imposed clarity on a race for the presidency that, while it certainly is not a single-issue contest, will always at its most fundamental level be about the question of whether America is going to elect a president who plans to end the war or who intends to manage it.
The presumptive Democratic nominee for president says that on his first day in office he will begin the process of extracting U.S. troops from Iraq so that they -- and the United States -- can get serious about combating terrorism.
Noting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's request for a withdrawal timetable, Obama explained in a much-anticipated speech Tuesday that "now is the time for a responsible redeployment of our combat troops that pushes Iraq's leaders toward a political solution, rebuilds our military, and refocuses on Afghanistan and our broader security interests."
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Satire or Smear: Muslim Barack, Black Panther Michelle
July 14, 2008
If the point of putting something on the cover of a magazine is to sell copies of the magazine, then the folks at The New Yorker are surely smart to have decided to take the most controversial stereotypes about Barack and Michelle Obama and put them front and center on the magazine racks of America.
The Obamas remain a mystery to most Americans. Primary results and polls suggest that the electorate has found much to like about the Illinois senator and his wife. But the voters who will decide whether to make the Obamas the country's First Couple don't know a whole lot about the people they might install in the White House next January.
That ignorance is the last remaining hope of a Republican Party that, after 14 years of Gingrich and DeLay and eight years of Bush and Cheney, has pretty much blown the franchise. Only if a creaking GOP machine can spin a mild and moderate freshman senator and a crisp and professional hospital administrator into something scary does John McCain stand a chance in November.
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Snow Brought a Measure of Dignity to White House
July 12, 2008
Even as he struggled with cancer, former White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters: "I'm a very lucky guy."
In fact, George Bush was lucky to have had Snow as his spokesman during the period when it became clear that, while Bush could not renew his failed presidency, he could be less of an embarrassment to himself and his country.
Snow was a true-believer Republican who, to a far greater extent than many of the people around the president, took seriously the work of communicating the ideas and ideals of the Bush-Cheney presidency to the American people.
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Pelosi Slips Impeachment Onto the Table
July 10, 2008
As Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich moved a "privileged resolution" to force House to consider the question of whether President Bush should be impeached for lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading and occupying Iraq, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surprised almost everyone by suggesting that the Judiciary Committee might indeed take up the issue.
Pelosi, who famously declared impeachment to be "off the table" before the 2006 election, now suggests that hearings on the president's high crimes and misdemeanors are a distinct possibility.
"My expectation is that there will be some review of that in the committee," the California Democrat told reporters Thursday.
(129) Comments
John Nichols
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