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...top Republicans are now plotting ways to remove Dick Cheney from office. The thinking is that a vacancy in the Veep's office could well provide a berth for one of the 2008 Republican contenders -- McCain or Thompson.
The strategy could work two ways, of course. Anyone who replaces Cheney will get Bush administration "cooties." It won't be easy to wash off the smell by November of 2008.
How to bell the cat? After Downing Street has some excellent suggestions. I have one of my own.
Call on your senators and congressional representatives and ask to have documents subpoenaed from Cheney's office. Which documents? It almost doesn't matter. Documents pertinent to the energy task force. Documents pertinent to the use of torture. Documents pertinent to the Niger forgeries. Anything will more or less do.
All of Cheney's staffers can be subpoenaed as well, on any number of issues. A Congressional investigation of Plame-gate. Haliburton contracts. The refusal to comply with the National Archives. Anything. Everything. All at once.
If Cheney or any of his underlings refuse to comply with a single subpoena -- and that's a very good bet -- he becomes instantly impeachable, on the same grounds that brought down Nixon. Cheney no longer has many friends in Congress. Nobody has his back.
If every person reading these words made the call to his or her House and Senate members, Cheney could well be history. First subpoena, then impeach. That's the plan, and it WILL work.
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This post elicited some idiotic responses, including one from a reader who claimed that my call to impeach Cheney was part of my dastardly plan to distract us from the really important issue, WT7. (That attitude is so effing typical of conspiracy theorists: God forbid we should ever actually do something in the political realm.)
But one comment, from "Dredd," did pique my interest:
Cheney has appeared, as has his staff, during the Plame-Wilson outting criminal case. Some of them just didn't tell the truth and are headed to the stir as a result (e.g. Libby).The impeachment articles mentioned were the ones offered by Dennis Kucinich (blessed be his name), which offer more generalized, less technical grounds for removal from office. Critics can argue, have argued, that Kucinich is trying to impeach the Veep over a disagreement in policy. I do not agree with that assessment, but I can easily see how the radio right would mount such an argument.
The courts upheld Cheney's cover-up of who is driving US energy policy. The DC district and appellate courts, as well as the Supreme Court, are right wing now. It was much less so during Nixon.
So it is a risk to use subpoenas as the foundation of the impeachment action, plus it means waiting to see if Cheney violated a subpoena or not. The courts and only the courts must decide that issue.
But only the House can draft impeachment articles. And those articles are there NOW. Those articles do not need a court ruling.
Refusal to comply with a subpoena is more straightforward. Moreover, it is not (as Dredd argued in another comment) necessarily a long and drawn-out process. My response to his words:
My intent was to follow to course set by the Nixon impeachment. A subpoena was issued by Jaworski in April, 1974. Nixon ignored it. The case went to the Supreme Court, which ruled against Nixon's claim of absolute executive privilege. On July 27, 1974, the House voted for the first article of impeachment.On a related note: Michael Roston conveys the current arguments in favor of doing away with the office of V.P. altogether:
That's not a whole lot of time --- although it seemed pretty long as it was happening. And look at all that was accomplished!
If we repeat the steps, a Supreme Court appeal might be avoided, since the matter has already been adjudicated.
So I think accusing me of "stalling" is ridiculous. The course I have outlined strikes me as pretty expeditious.
(Forgive the Keillorism.)
Start the process now and Dick is outta there by September.
Personally, I would love it if the House would act on Kucinich's resolution. I just don't think they will. And since the territory is very uncharted, I can see the Kucinich thing somehow ending up in court.
Not only that. Subpoenas are a court "thingie" only if issued by a court. That's what happened in the Nixon case: Jaworski was prosecuting Nixon's co-conspirators, and he subpoenaed the tapes as evidence. But Congress can act, at times, as a court acts. ('Tis the season for cross-currents between the three branches of gummint!) For example, Congress can compel you to give testimony under oath, and you can be charged with contempt of Congress.
So I see no reason --- none at all --- why a subpoena issued to Cheney by Congress, and ignored by him, cannot lead to articles of impeachment within a very short period of time. Like, a couple of weeks.
"In any case after these two are gone the problem will still remain: there is no effective legal restraint against a Vice President who abuses his power the way Cheney has....there is nothing in the Constitution that I can find which explicitly prohibits the VP from taking over the fucking government," wrote 'Xan,' who blogs at CorrenteWire. "Why not go all the way and just abolish the fucking office? The VP has no assigned duties, we already established that. Idle hands are the Devil’s playground..."I disagree.
Since before my birth, scholars of the presidency have argued that the job is too much for any one man, since the office combines functions normally given, in other systems, to two individuals: Chief of State and Chief Executive. The former is a largely ceremonial role; the second is where the true power resides. The obvious example would be Britain, where the Queen and her family fulfill ceremonial functions while the Prime Minister actually runs things (or, if he's a jerk, allows George Bush to run things).
The answer, to me, is not to abolish the office of vice president but to define it more narrowly. Too many ceremonial duties demand the time of the current chief executive. If we de-veepify the nation, who will do the state funeral thing?
Remove our Dick. America needs a Queen!
6 comments:
Dennis Kucinich (blessed be his name)
Amen, brother!
Here is where the rubber meets the road. I think, no, I am absolutely convinced, we NEED a constitutional crisis of some magnitude if we are ever to clean the slate and begin to rebuild our broken system. It can't go on like this, and if it's allowed to out of ennui or cawardice, THEY will force a crisis on their own terms.
Issue subpoenas, cut funding to the OVP, whatever it takes, JUST DO IT!
"Remove our Dick. America needs a Queen!"
Now, you just know there's a tranny joke in there trying to come out, so to speak.
But I digress.
I am a staunch monarchist, which is not all that common, even here in Canada. When people ask me why, I usually respond, "Two words: Richard Nixon." Now I sometimes say instead, "One letter: W."
One of the great advantages of having a monarchy is that there is someone who can tell the real power holder (the Prime Minister) to go forth and multiply and call an immediate election. It has happened in Canada, albeit rarely. There is a constitutional convention (one of the bits that is not written down) that the Governor-General must immediately resign if he or she dismisses a PM who has not asked for an election.
Another advantage is that having a monarchy, clearly identified, is a reminder to the PM, or anyone else who gets confused, that he is *not* a king.
The third advantage is that there are some sorts of power that are not safe to aspire to. I would go so far as to say that anyone who is ambitious enough to want to be a head of state is unsuitable for the job by that very fact.
And on a personal note, since all members of the armed forces are by definition personal servants of the Queen, I have the frequent comfort of looking at the Head Politician in Charge and reminding myself, "At least I don't work for him!"
Jim
The differences between a subpoena by a prosecutor (in the executive branch) and by the Congress in the legislative branch are manifold, and contain the reason why this gambit will fail.
For the Congress has no enforcement power, aside from the executive branch. And the Supreme Court has always had a penchant for sidestepping any adjudication of separation of powers issues as being 'political matters.'
The SCOTUS, in the other case captioning Nixon, stated that there was indeed a robust executive privilege, and only that it should give way on a balancing test to the needs and interests of society in pursuing the facts of a CRIMINAL case. Problem: such a case has to be brought by somebody in the executive branch.
So this is quickly a case of the dog chasing its tail. The Congress can only get enforcement out of a recalcitrant executive branch that is unlikely to provide such succor, considering that their target would be the top officers in the executive branch.
Stalemate, at best. Then, the matter becomes fully and wholly political, and the question is whether the political theater ends up with the public throwing out the rascals or not (which is the remedy the traditional SCOTUS reluctance to involve itself envisions).
Sorry, but that's how it would come out.
sofla
sadly, sofia is correct here.
though - IN THEORY - it makes so much sense and seems SO just, it is in fact not feasible, given the SCOTUS ruling that requires a criminal case for the executive to cough up docs and persons on subpoena.
however, let us not forget that fitz remains on the leak case. if anything spills on that end of things, then we might have a crime and there is already precedent.
however, lawyers are just so creative at deriving novel arguments on which to hang their cases, so i would fully expect addington to derive something about as reasonable as cheney's magical 4th branch argument to allow this unbelievably UNconstitutional FU five a means for ruling in favor of the exec.
all that being said, the subpoenas are not useless. the more the exec branch and the corrupt cabal give congress the finger, the less the public is going to like it.
almost forgot your comment to dredd, joe.
actually, it again sounds good - IN THEORY. but there are many places where the analogy to watergate breaks down.
the first is that the courts look very very different than they did thirty years ago. the second is that nixon had a few really principled lawyers working for him, both in the WH and in the DOJ. cox was the special prosecutor who issued the subpoenas IN A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION, and knowledge of the tapes only became known because butterfield, a deputy asst to nixon, was asked about them while testifying in congress.
this case is never going to get that far. we'll NEVER see ANY member of bush or cheney's staffs actually testifying in congress. we might see card or harriet or anyone who's gone, but no one who's there. something of substance could come from those individuals, but take note that the WH is fighting even those testimonies!
so, again; though subpoenas have been pretty enticing so far, giving us a boatload of incriminating stuff, they won't prove the same kind of showdown that they did for nixon's demise.
these creeps just have too many of the normal avenues of justice blocked off, suggesting they've been planning for this for, well, thirty years.
about right, dickie boy?
I am persuaded that republicans really want the end of Cheney at this point, so arguments based on the conservative nature of the judiciary aren't really compelling.
Besides, I just don't see sofla's argument. Congress does have some enforcement power (ah, this branch crossing business really is in the air!) in that they can compel an arrest under certain circumstances. More than that, impeachment IS the enforcement power.
I'm sorry, but I see nothing at all stopping someone from drafting articles of IMpeachment based on refusal to acknowledge a congressional subpoena. I don't even so how the Supreme court or any other court would enter into it. The idea of Cheney's lawyers bringing suit to the Supremes to stave off an impeachment is silly.
Be a hell of a ting if it happened, huh?
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