Re impeaching Bush: One question is whether the standards for impeachment ought to be lower for Presidents who were not democratically elected. Note: I am not 1) taking a stand on the merits of whether lying about WMD in Iraq is an impeachable offense, or 2) trying to restart debate over the legitimacy of the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision.
However,, to the extent that the extremely high standards for impeachment are intended to limit its use as a losers' political weapon to undue democratic election results, arguably impeachment has more utility as a check on Presidents who take office by extraordinary means. Thus, even assuming the legitimacy of the Bush v. Gore decision (e.g., national crisis, something had to be done, Supreme Court stepped in to avoid a constitutional crisis, whatever.), the upshot was that a President took office who was not democratically elected. (After all, It is conceded, isn't it, that a majority of the voters in the state of Florida went to the polls and tried to vote for Gore). And although impeachment is ultimately political, since politcial branches make the ultimate decision, these arguments are relevant to the public debate over reasonableness of impeachment, which ultimately (as with Clinton/Nixon), drives the political branches' decisionmaking. (For example, the Democrats' willingness to back Clinton). As to whether Republicans would back an impeachment movement, as I recall, most of the support for the Iraq war during the leadup time was essentially a vote of confidence in Bush, given that the rational argumements in support of it seemed so weak (for example, why not wait three weeks for the inspectors to continue their work, to get UN approval, etc., why not spend the resources fighting greater threats, Al Queada, North Korea, etc..). The people who were strongly in support almost uniformly seemed to ground their support in a patriotic need to trust the judgment of the President that Iraq had WMD which could fall into the hands of terrorists who could use them at any time to attack the US - therefore we have to go in now, while the going's good, etc. etc. . So you repeatedly heard Iraq war supporters making preliminary comments like "we have to back the president in the time of national crisis, if he says they're there we have to believe him, these calls are for the President to make.) If it turns out their trust was betrayed by intentional lying and misrepresentation on an issue of such importance, I think there's a good chance they are not going to take it well. (OF course, if the matter were perceived as simply a witch hunt by Democrats trying to get even for Clinton, that's another state of affairs) yb ******************************************* Professor Yvette M. Barksdale Associate Professor of Law The John Marshall Law School 315 S. Plymouth Ct. Chicago, IL 60604 (312) 427-2737 (email:) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** > ---------- > From: Mark Graber[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Reply To: Discussion list for con law professors > Sent: Monday, June 09, 2003 6:38 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: WMDs and Bush Impeachment > > Most liberal Democrats believe that the Bush regime (which counts characters like > Tom Delay) are doing a great many things that might warrant impeachment if the > standard of impeachment was the House vote on Clinton. Most Republicans believe > Bush does not meet the Clinton standard and, at any rate, that standard should be > adjusted in light of the Senate vote on Clinton. The real issue is what ought to be > the constitutional significance of the Clinton impeachment. > > My own belief is that it ought to be used to embarrass Republicans, clearly > violating the rules of the game. So, too with Bush's lying about Iraq (and my > amateurish guess is there probably are WMDs).> Impeachment helsp Republicans, > getting people to question Bush's honesty helps Democrats. About the way the > constitution was supposed to work until the lawyers took over in the 19th century. > > Mark A. Graber >
