An interesting argument that “high crimes and misdemeanors” doesn’t mean what we think it means.
(The context is the notion of impeaching Alberto Gonzales, but the writer says, “I am not arguing for impeachment in this diary. I am arguing against specific invalid reasons regularly given for not proceeding with impeachment.” … And yes, it’s from Daily Kos, but it’s a non-batsh*t-crazy Daily Kos post! Might not be right, but not crazy. And interesting.)
Yeah, the DK post is not “batshit crazy” insofar as it attempts to be a substantiated argument untainted by partisan hyperbole, but the gist is still nutso. What geomoo’s position boils down to is that impeachment is not brought on by criminal behavior but rather is warranted by political implementations deemed by the opposition to be beyond the scope of the law and Constitution. Under this standard, if Congress was dominated by the GOP in the 1930s, they would have been well within their bounds to impeach FDR; and if Southerners had better control of the Senate in the early 1860s, according to this guy’s approach, Lincoln should’ve been removed.
I’m just not convinced. I think the Founders had a tremendous respect for the rule of law, and the language they used in the Constitution makes apparent that they meant impeachment to be driven by obviously criminal, abuse-of-power behavior and not politics.
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August 5th, 2007 at 5:50:22 am
Yeah, the DK post is not “batshit crazy” insofar as it attempts to be a substantiated argument untainted by partisan hyperbole, but the gist is still nutso. What geomoo’s position boils down to is that impeachment is not brought on by criminal behavior but rather is warranted by political implementations deemed by the opposition to be beyond the scope of the law and Constitution. Under this standard, if Congress was dominated by the GOP in the 1930s, they would have been well within their bounds to impeach FDR; and if Southerners had better control of the Senate in the early 1860s, according to this guy’s approach, Lincoln should’ve been removed.
I’m just not convinced. I think the Founders had a tremendous respect for the rule of law, and the language they used in the Constitution makes apparent that they meant impeachment to be driven by obviously criminal, abuse-of-power behavior and not politics.