NYT Editorial - The Imperial Presidency 2.0 - An Argument For IMPEACHING BUSH!

[kpete]

NYT Editorial
The Imperial Presidency 2.0
Published: January 7, 2007

........................

That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances.

In 2006, the voters sent Mr. Bush a powerful message that it was time to rein in his imperial ambitions. But we have yet to see any sign that Mr. Bush understands that — or even realizes that the Democrats are now in control of the Congress. Indeed, he seems to have interpreted his party’s drubbing as a mandate to keep pursuing his fantasy of victory in Iraq and to press ahead undaunted with his assault on civil liberties and the judicial system. Just before the Christmas break, the Justice Department served notice to Senator Patrick Leahy — the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee — that it intended to keep stonewalling Congressional inquiries into Mr. Bush’s inhumane and unconstitutional treatment of prisoners taken in anti-terrorist campaigns. It refused to hand over two documents, including one in which Mr. Bush authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to establish secret prisons beyond the reach of American law or international treaties. The other set forth the interrogation methods authorized in these prisons — which we now know ranged from abuse to outright torture.

..................


We would lend such efforts our enthusiastic backing and hope Mr. Leahy, Mr. Durbin and other Democratic leaders are not swayed by the absurd notion circulating in Washington that the Democrats should now “look ahead” rather than use their new majority to right the dangerous wrongs of the last six years of Mr. Bush’s one-party rule.

This is a false choice. Dealing with these issues is not about the past. The administration’s assault on some of the nation’s founding principles continues unabated. If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place.


read the whole thing - NYT points to SEVERAL transgressions of this administration that can be seen as unconstitutional

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/opinion/07sun1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[Hubert Flottz]

1. I couldn't agree more.

America can't wait for 2008 like Bush hopes it will!

[Maryland Liberal]

3. Free John Conyers!!!

Thats all that needs to be said

[walldude]

16. No shit... Conyers is ready.

Welcome to DU :toast:

[Eric J in MN]

2. The Bush Administration is full of...

...shameless assholes.

They could have stopped with the signing statements after the 2006 election. Showed a drop of humility instead of declaring that they can search our mail without a warrant.

[salin]

4. Powerful Editorial

is the Sunday edition of the NYT still one of the widest read papers on Sunday?

[Mandate My Ass]

5. I couldn't agree more

If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place.

If they let the police state continue, they're worse than the republicans IMHO. We the people expect them to defend the Constitution and rein this asshole in big time. If they can't/won't, then they need to step aside for someone with the gumption to get the job done. We shall see.

[focusfan]

6. i wish Bush could be impeached

but I don't see that happening.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

19. Impeachment is easy. Just a bare majority of the House can do it

Conviction is the tough part.

It takes 67 senators for a conviction. That means that 16 repugs would have to vote to remove Truthless Leader from office, as well as Lieberman.

However, editorials like this one are a step in the right direction. Pretty soon now, John Conyers is going to start asking a lot of questions that administration lackeys will not want to answer. These sycophants will ducking, dodging and lying live on C-SPAN every day for weeks on end as Mr. Conyers performs Congressional oversight hearings.

Since it is on C-SPAN, it will also draw M$M attention, just to keep their audience share.

Once this process starts, we could have a groundswell of public support for removing this POS POTUS from office that the repug senators can't ignore.

With Nixon and Watergate, it got to the point that the senators knew they would have to remove him from office if it came to a vote, just to survive politically. We may be on the verge of that happening again.

There are two important PR differences between Nixon's Watergate and BushCo's crime spree. The media in Nixon's day was not biased in his favor and the repug senators of his day weren't complicit in Nixon's crimes. These factors might make is harder for a repug senator to vote to impeach today than it was in 1974. These senators cosigned many of Bush's crimes.

However, the sheer volume of criminal activity conducted by BushCo may offset those PR differences. Once the average American sees what has gone on in the last six years, they will be a lot more interested in getting rid of Bush. They already know that Truthless Leader is a liar.

He's about to be exposed as a wanna-be dictator and a criminal.

[mdmc]

7. thank you for this info

:kick:R
Either you are for chIMPEACHMENT, or you are part of the problem...

[pretzel4gore]

8. the REALLY big story is

that bush gets away with it, has gotten away with it not because anything dems do/did, but because pigmedia can't/won't simply report to citizens that reining in bush if he don't want to be reined might force the sensible part of elite to ally themselves with the people, and THEY DON'T WANT TO DO THAT! not openly anyway: so they'll try to find a formula that will correct the problem while allowing foxnews cnn and the mediawhores to continue to prosper, which might be mutually exclusive objectives...(?)
that's what's going on. the nytimes wants bush to stoppit, but he refuses to so they can only hint at solution (impeachment) hoping bush understand they mean biz etc (the main thing is the people are not a factor beyond obeying what they told)

[Straight Shooter]

9. Amen. n/t

[kentuck]

10. "chilling..."

Hmmm..mmm

[petgoat]

11. Restore Honor to the White House. Impeach the Chimp. nt

[Kurovski]

12. K&R.

The more discussion there is on impeachment, the better I like it.

[cui bono]

13. I just read this same editorial in the Internat'l Herald Tribune

Good to see it distributed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Stage 1 investigations

Step 2, the press and US, chiefly US start demanding it.

Seems we are on step two already

:-)

So remember, as a PSA, pester your congress critters this week, hell give them a copy of this editorial

Oh and remmeber, pester your local paper too... at times it is efficient to write one letter and send it to both congress critter AND local paper

[SeattleGirl]

15. Right on!

I absolutely agree!

[Bozita]

17. Best NYT editorial in a lo-o-o-ng time!

[uberllama42]

18. agreed n/t

[cyclezealot]

20. Wish the NYT had done their job

in the Spring of 2003.

[omega minimo]

21. The administration’s assault on some of the nation’s founding principles continues unabated.