I am opposed to impeaching the President of the United States until concrete solid evidence turns up. The only place I can currently see that happening is around the FISA wiretappings. Impeachment is not a process to recall an inept, incompetent or unpopular President. It is a specific legal process that requires proof of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors".
I was opposed to the recall election in California for the same reasons. Democracy has a morality and that requires that an elected representative or executive has the right to complete their term unless they have committed criminal acts.
It is not enough that they are unpopular to a majority, or a minority. In the case of the recall election in California it was a minority that objected and collected enough signature to recall Grey Davis.
Republicanism requires that the minority accept the majority's will, however they do so secure in their rights as individuals. This does not mean a minority get to gazump an election or an elected position through the collection of 50,000 signatures.
The call for using impeachment as an electoral recall device to take back a 2004 decision is a similar situation. It is more complex with the Bush Administration as the current President has approval ratings that are 1% above Richard Nixon before he resigned.
But this does not detract from the morality inherent in democracy that demands the President complete his term unless discovered to have performed criminal actions. The time to remove the Bush Administration was in 2004 when there was a general election.
While I consider the Bush Administration repugnant, incompetent, inept, dishonest and incapable of good governance; I do not want them impeached unless there is good evidence they committed crimes and misdemeanors. I don't doubt that there has been criminal activity going on, but it can't be a gut feel, it must be proven.
Some of the claims to start impeachment proceedings include that the Administration lied to take American to war. This does not fly as two Senators from the Intelligence Committee voted against the war powers. All it would have taken is for them, despite being gagged on what they had seen, to say, "This is bogus. The intelligence being presented is a lie."
There were many warnings that the Administration was leading with falsehoods. The Knight-Ridder newspapers were exposing it. There were leaks and op-eds on the dishonest nature of the intelligence. There was also the representatives in Congress themselves, who rather than face down a popular President with ratings in the 90% mark, chose to vote for the war. The failure was Congress' as much as the Administration's.
France is one of the few countries that maintains independent intelligence assets that can rival the United States. Most other countries such as Australia, Britain and Germany are dependent on US intelligence.
France was opposed to the war and publicly said that the intelligence the US was presenting was wrong. It was assumed in the US that France was conducting Gaullist foreign policy and trying to counter US hegemony. They were then slurred with the 'freedom fries' and the pouring of French wine down gutters.
France was right. The information, or truth, was out there.
The outing of a CIA agent is another issue. Because of Scooter Libby taking the brunt of that, unless double jepaordy is changed, we will not know if Plame was outed by Cheney. There is also the grey area that the Vice President can declassify intelligence. I doubt it.
There is probably statues or executive orders that force some kind of process to it, but given the US Republican Party Congress of the time and the manner in which President Bush uses executive orders, I am sure that would be quickly changed.
Another issue is torture. This is a good example where the Bush Administration have used the grey areas of convention and precedent to keep the whole process outside of judicial scrutiny. They also used a compliant Congress to pass a bill that allowed the executive to use torturous methods in the McCain bill.
The argument is that this contradicts the UN treaty on it and as such is breaking international law. In the US legal system treaties and statues have equal authority and more recent legislation can over-ride a treaty. Consequently the McCain bill became the authority on torture.
Again this is failure of Congress to act as a check and balance on the Executive. This is a classic symptom of state of exception governance where the legislative gives the executive new opportunities to act arbitrarily and outside of the juridical order.
A common claim is the dereliction of duty when the 911 attacks happened. The image of Bush stupefied in a school classroom with a child's book in his hand for five minutes before he decided to do anything is instructive. But incompetence is not a valid reason for impeachment. It must be criminal.
I am fully in favour of an energetic legislative shaking the executive tree constantly. I also think it is important that the current Congress continue to subpeona and introduce contempt charges when the executive does not comply. It is important that a weak and unpopular executive face a strong legislative with public will behind it to create new precedents should a future George try to push the boundaries of executive authority.
I am fully comfortable with the legislative investigating FISA and any other action by the executive where there is the slightest sniff of criminal behaviour. Once there is proof, then impeachment should begin.
Until then I will be happy with an energetic legislative doing what they should have done four years ago and act as a check and balance on the executive.
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