All Bullshit Aside: Here Are the Issues

[sirs]

And FYI, Ami's still right.  Still only 2 presidents ever Impeached, and Nixon wasn't 1 of them

XO knows that. That is why he didn't directly address AMI's post.

Smart move......for a change

[Xavier_Onassis]

This is direct as it gets, clown:

Nixon knew that if he did not resign, be would be both impeached and ejected from office in disgrace, so he fled.

[BT]

Nixon knew that if he did not resign, be would be both impeached and ejected from office in disgrace, so he fled.

he was not impeached, like you claimed he was.

Perhaps you mispoke, perhaps you were taken out of context, perhaps you were fed faulty intelligence, perhaps you simply got it wrong.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I did not say that Nixon was impeached.

I said that he knew that he would be both impeached and convicted, and he fled rather than face either.

The Republican leaders came to the White House and told Nixon that he would be impeached and deposed, and he resigned.
Everyone knows this. It is not because he was somehow more innocent than Clinton or Johnson.

He looked like sh*t and fell in it, and he knew it. That's why he quit.

[BT]

I did not say that Nixon was impeached.

Ooops my mistake. Crane was the one making that claim.

[yellow_crane]

Nixon knew that if he did not resign, be would be both impeached and ejected from office in disgrace, so he fled.

he was not impeached, like you claimed he was.

Perhaps you mispoke, perhaps you were taken out of context, perhaps you were fed faulty intelligence, perhaps you simply got it wrong.

I simply got it wrong.

Actually, I was arguing impeachment and the process, stating that Nixon's end came when the tapes were discovered, and did not stipulate that Nixon was not impeached, but was done in by the threat of impeachment.  Nixon was brought to impreachment, and they gave him the option of the noble dagger.

Ami got it right, as far as the gotcha goes.   I would have felt defeated if the issue I was making rested on that clarity.  It really didn't.

As you know, any argument can be brought to the mat with a gotcha.  

Again, Ami was factually right, and I was amiss, too busy making my point to keep my ducks in a row.

Ami got one duck.

[Michael Tee]

<<Again, Ami was factually right, and I was amiss, too busy making my point to keep my ducks in a row.

<<Ami got one duck>>

But he didn't get the yellow crane. 

The problem with these right-wing nit-pickers is that they're afraid to face the issue head-on so they avoid it wherever possible by picking out tiny and largely insignificant factual errors or half-errors which aren't even material to the argument, and then they crow like they shot down the whole idea (which they never really addressed) in flames.  You gotta keep a sense of humour when you're dealing with them, Crane, because you know they'll never win an argument legitimately.

[BT]

I guess the question is how important is it to have your ducks in a row when trying to make a point. Does your point suffer when surrounded by factual errors?

Is the greater truth more imprtant tan the piilars of that proof?

Wasn't that what rathergate was about. Were any lessons learned?

And Mikey, I like Crane. Always have. Glad he posts here. He has a unique talent he brings to the boards. I rarely agree with him, but i love his presentation. Even when his ducks are being non conformist.

[yellow_crane]

Being a liberal rather than a big buck lemming, I feel their pain.

They have but shards to attempt to paste together, given the ruins they stand in.

Still, this has been a regime of knowing what we don't know, so who knows?

With all that's happening in the collapsing cards, you can't find compunction in the White House with a magnifying glass.

Maybe they're waiting for another big boom, and a suspension of the Constitution.  As you know, the first big boom gave them all their assumed power, and the seemingly unchallenged privledge to doctor up a new way of political life in America.  Scalia, appointed by Papa and rarely a disappointment to him, calmly overroad the Florida Supreme Court, giving their power binge continuum.

They have tried to unlace the Constitution from Day One.

It was Bush's Attorney General, I believe, Bush Hispanic Gonzales who called it an 'out-dated' document while, maintaining the momentum, Bush added that it was 'just a piece of paper.'

Wonder if either one of them regretted those remarks?

More, was dissing the Constitution a talking point, to be picked up and punted forward?

It went away quietly, so maybe a wiser Rove called it for what it was--a fucked duck.

[yellow_crane]

Nothing Bush is doing now in Pelosi's post-pledge period is anywhere near a high crime or misdemeanor. As for the entry into the war itself, from the avalanche of material that has been produced on it (though more may come out), I do not believe Bush "lied" our way into war so much as he fumbled us into it in a march of stupidity, stubborness and true belief. Neither is that portrait of his behavior a high crime or misdemeanor.

"Nothing Bush is doing . . . is anywhere near a high crime and misdemeanor."



Actually, a high crime or misdemeanor is somewhat nearer than you think, since I was speaking of Bush, the President, the numero uno in high office.


"Meaning of 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors'

by Jon Roland, Constitutional Society


The question of impeachment turns on the meaning of the phrase in the Constitution at Art. II Sec. 4, "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."  I have carefully researched the origin of the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" and its meaning to the Framers, and found that the key to understanding it is the word "high."   It does not mean "more serious."  It refers to those punishable offenses that only apply to high persons, that is, to public officials, those who, because of their official status, are under special obligations that ordinary persons are not under, and which could not be meaningfully applied or justly punished if committed by ordinary persons.

Under the English common law tradition, crimes were defined through a legacy of court proceedings and decisions that punished offenses not because they were prohibitied by statutes, but because they offended the sense of justice of the people and the court . . .

...

Offenses of this kind survive today in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  It recognizes as punishable offenses such things as refusal to obey orders, abuse of authority, dereliction of duty, moral turpitude, and conduct unbecoming.  These would not be offenses if committed by a civilian with no offical position, but they are offenses which bear on the subject's fitness for the duties he holds, which he is bound by oath or affirmation to perform.

Perjury is usually defined as "lying under oath."  That is not quite right.  The original meaning was "violation of one's oath (or affirmation.)"

...

By Art. II Sec. l Cl. 8, the president must swear:  "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  He is bound by this oath in all matters until he leaves office.  No additional oath is needed to bind him to tell the truth in anything he says, as telling the truth is pursuant to all matters except perhaps those relating to national security.  Any public statement is perjury if it is a lie, and not necessary to deceive an enemy.


http://www.constitution.org/cmt/high_crimes.htm

[Plane]

I do not get Jon Roland's point.


The Presidential oath is not to tell the truth , the wholetruth and nothing but the truth , so telling a lie doesn't break the oath.


Rather it would seem that when a lie being told was an advantage to the preserveation, protectin and defence the Constitution of the United States he is sworn to tell te lie?

[Michael Tee]

<<Rather it would seem that when a lie being told was an advantage to the preserveation, protectin and defence the Constitution of the United States he is sworn to tell te lie?>>

It's  not impossible but I think it would be a pretty rare occurrence when a Presidential lie would help defend the Constitution.  Obviously a "lie" sometimes is necessary in the defence of the nation if the enemy is to be kept from sensing the real weakness of the defending forces (I'm thinking of Churchill, after the fall of France, "We shall fight them on the beaches and on the landing grounds, we shall fight them in the fields and from the hills, we shall never surrender" - - was that a lie, and if it was, so what? it was magnificient)

Lies like Bush's - - the "threat" of Iraqi WMD, and now the "threat" of Iranian nukes - - are contemptible, designed not to protect America from enemies who might otherwise move in for the kill, but designed solely to mislead the people into approving wars which, if the truth were known, no sane or normal American would ever approve.

[Plane]

Do you consider a Nuclear arms race in the middle east no threat ?

Or is this a lie for some other reason?

[Michael Tee]

<<Do you consider a Nuclear arms race in the middle east no threat ?>>

How could it be a threat?  If you stop fucking with them, they will stop fucking with you.  A nuke or two in Iranian hands could not possibly save them from the anihilation that would follow if they even attempted to nuke America.  What could they possibly hope to gain anyway?  Even a successful first strike (hard as it is to imagine) would leave them open and vulnerable to anihilation.

<<Or is this a lie for some other reason?>>

It's a lie because it's not true.

[domer]

Even accepting this peckerwood, impeachment advocate's analysis as somewhat ballpark, in my view Bush didn't "lie" but rather fucked up, a consequence you can't sanction without paralyzing executive decision-making altogether.