Thanks for your take on Russ. I’m from WI originally and so proud of his record and his principled stands, that I was beyond dismayed to see what appeared to me to be yet another Dem putting election considerations for his party ahead of what is good for the country. I was genuinely shocked. I had assumed that he already understood what is at stake in terms of the precedent being set and the real jeopardy our constituional democracy will be in if this precedent is allowed to stand.

I am not an alarmist. I don’t agree with those who fret that the 2008 elections will be suspended. Even for this crowd of Rethugs that would be too heavy handed and would likely result in massive civil unrest.

But it is not a stretch to look down the road and see in the not too distant future a government here that is a monarchy in all but name. I had counted on Russ to be making this argument to his Congressional colleagues. The fact that he is not makes it all that much harder for us regular citizens to get the attention of those who can actually do something about the administration’s abuse of power.

i’m working on a letter to Sen. Feingold. I haven’t given up on him yet. But if he keeps acting like an idiot, I’ll keep calling him one ;)

And just for the record, I too was impressed that Sen. Feingold put the good of the country ahead of his own political aspirations when he chose not to run and to do his job in the Senate. I’m still hopeful that we can persuade him to see the necessity of impeachment.

rhfactor — It’s late and I imagine everyone has wandered off by now, but I wanted to say thanks for the additional link and your comments as well. I know the FDL comment section isn’t a good fit for what you had hoped to accomplish, but I hope to cross paths with you again sometime, if not here then elsewhere… And yep, Russ’ appalling stance suggests to me that the Dems in both houses are completely and utterly out of touch with their responsibility to uphold the rule of law. Honestly, what don’t they get? For once, I would love to see one of them define their existence in terms of being an American citizen rather than in terms of their party affiliation with their election dreams filled with sugar plum fairies.

phred — thx, glad the link was useful. Yeah, Russ really pulled a perplexing move there… It just doesn’t fit with everything else about him. The guy was a candidate for President, for god’s sake, and over a year ago in a whole series of straw polls at dKos, when pitted against all the current Dem candidates, he was #1 — with Gore not considered. And #2 with Gore added to choices. But by huge percentage over all those currently in the pack. Wes Clark would come in third when included.

A year ago it seemed like Russ would make a perfect Pres candidate — with one major prob to overcome from the dumb horserace perspective — which lead him to drop out actually: the Jewish name — despite Lieberman paired with Gore in 00 (btw, isn’t is just amazing to consider that schmuck could have been VP right now — and onwards towards becoming President? He’s 180 from Al Gore now — and that’s with both of them moving radically different from how they each were on 99-00)

Anyway, Feingold is a real man of integrity — which is why i am so shocked and dismayed by him. But what he said back in mid Nov 06, after the surprsing House/Senate Dem midterm results (in spite of the usual horrible Beltway Hack Consultant “strategies” of Rham et al) was, he had not expected a Senate majority — and that now with that majority, and the subpoena power and committee control that gave the senate dems, he felt a moral obligation to serve the immediate needs of America — to get us out of Iraq — vs, for example, the more selfish apprpach of Obama — the junior with scarecly 2 years in Senate and already skipping out on his day job to hit the trail in oursuit of his next gig.

But he also said that he weighed the Presidential run very seriosuly, and he inferred, but never directly used the words, “I’d have to spend all this time building up a warchest and I’m swimming upstream because America isn;t ready to elect a Jew President”.

Most people never saw that, but it was in a diary at DailyKos in that time period.

My reason for stating all of that is — he’s the real thing — a man who puts service to country before perosnal gain — and a man who is so eloquent and dircet on Tv in interviews, never ever sounding phony like most of em.

And he’d taken tough stands before — and even before we have now found all whole LAYERS of new dirt on BushCo, he was focused like a lasar on censuring Bush, which went very agaunst the grain at that point.

It is really hard to know what is really in his mind right now. There are poeple who take a dark view and allege that Rove or someone’s got some kind of dirt on these Dems to turn them all inot withering sissies who yak yak but don’t deliver the goods.

I’m really pissed about this — and I am reminded when Boxer stunned all and went to campaign for Joe Lieb which helped him, ultimately, beat Lamont… You could see she felt trapped m by the video of her there. it was clearly a favor called in — and some kind of senate honor code must have convinced her she “owed” Joe — and simply had to do it out of obligation.

So it’s hard to know what the real strory is.

ugh, it’s late, 1:35 am pac, and i have to go to bed.

thanks again for the nice note :)

And Praedor, I laughed out loud at your comment, but I’m not sure even that would do the trick ;)

althespook @ 226

I suspect that Ms. Pelosi wants Chimpy to be caught in something so vile that even the die hard rethugs will have to agree to out him. And remember above all things, we have to get Cheney out first. do we really want to exchange chimpy for darth? I don’t think so!

We can impeach them both at the same time.

God knows that torturing people, or disappearing them, for all practical purposes, forever, initiating wars to fulfill some crazy religious beliefs, or violating the Law of the Land (take your pick: warrantless spying on Americans, functioning signing statements, disobeying subpoenas, violating treaties to which we are signatories) are not “vile” enough.

All I can think is that Bush actually has to sacrifice an infant to his god in the WH Press room to get any rise out of Pelosi.

looseheadprop @ 46

Then how did Ford pardon Nixon? Or does this mean a President can’t pardon himself? That isn’t right since he would no longer be president…..Was Nixon ever formally impeached or did he resign to avoid that?

Nixon resigned to AVOID impeachment.

Hate to be a nitpicker, but as much as I like Bruce Fein and would lavish him with praise over the past few years… It was The Nation’s John Nichols who said:

You are seeing impeachment as a constitutional crisis. Impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis. Don’t mistake the medicine for the disease. When you have a constitutional crisis, the founders are very clear. They said there is a way to deal with this. We don’t have to have a war. We don’t have to raise an army and go to Washington. We have procedures in place where we can sanction a president appropriately, do what needs to be done up to the point of removing him from office and continue the republic.

I was going to point this out but you beat me to it. LOL

rhfactor – i don’t think you’re being fair. no one told you to “mind your manners”… no one “lectured” you… you asked for a reply, you asked why you weren’t getting the response you wanted… people tried to help.. with suggestions, with questions…

no one (including, i think, the front pagers) reads all the comments on this site… so maybe i’m missing something – but i think i’ve only seen one comment from you before today.

i’m not sure what you want from me… what can i (or any other commenter) do to help?

Howdy Selise — Okay, I hear you :) … I actually spent the past hour and half collecting my thoughts and writing a reply to you, citing what I was speaking of, but I look at it now and it’s just so off-topic for this thread here that I’d rather not post it.

If you like, I can email it to you if you just want to read my thoughts on it.

If so, please send me email to:

rhfactorUSA
at Gmail dotcom

I want to thank the whole bunch of nice and welcoming responses above. Y’all are great — and nice to drop by … Basically, I have been working on video-to-mainstream tools since Dean campaign, and what I was looking for here was specific-project-oriented, not discussion per se. Not because of disinterest — hardly — the front pagers at FDL are fantastic. It’s just that my focus is moving this toolset forward. So there was a mis-match from the start. I just didn’t know it, because I had assumed with the fantastic standup video work throughout the Libby trial, the siterunner’s were already charged and ready to go with expanding that.

All is well — and thanks selise — very nice of you to respond to my concerns. I really do appreciate it :)

Thanks for the link. I had hoped GrandmaJ was right about it all being a particularly clever ruse on Pelosi’s part, but now I can go back to calling them out for being the spineless unprincipled calculating weasels that they are (and that includes you too Russ — idiot).

You’re welcome. I confuse the various “Grandmas” across the blogosphere but I think GrandmaJ was a Deaniac (shout out!)… but over at dKos, I do know that “madgranny” will have nothing of that “Pelosi’s great strategy” talk!!

But that subject, of whether this was a great strategic ploy by pelosi — to get Bush feeling like he’s safe from any impeachment, leading him to surely overstep his bounds so blatantly, as he did with ordering Miers to defy Congress, that then she’d lower the boom — was the topic of another pretty thorough discussion at dKos — initiated by a poster there named “occam’s hatchet”… If it interests you, here is that link:

Is Nancy Pelosi a freakin’ GENIUS??
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/12/202315/831

I still can’t figure out if “occam hatchet”’s initial post was snark! Regardless, it prompted a pretty thorough discussion with many sides taken and argued.

My own answer to his title question is — she’s my Congresswoman in San Fran — and HELL NO. She’s deluded into believing that an 08 election of a Dem President will throw pixie dust over the country causing all problems to then be solved, returning us to the rule of law. Funny thing: she has no desire to USE the rule of law to RETURN to the rule of law. I think with Russ’s announcement yesterday — coming from one of our most progressive leaders in the country — it’s a pretty good bet nancy doesn’t have a secret masterplan.

Lewis Libby’s presidential reprieve involves a case where the Vice-President’s office was involved in revealing a covert CIA agent, which would seem to fit the bill of a “high crimes” which could subject the Vice-President to Impeachment should congress so will. The grand jury did make a finding that a crime had occurred and Lewis Libby was charged in connection to that crime and he was subsequently convicted for perjury regarding that crime that took place while employed by the Vice President. It would seem that this would be a case where Impeachment of the Vice-President would be a likely remedy, one which is so plausible that the American public favor such a remedy by 54%.

The constitution’s wording does not specify what officer in regard to impeachment they are referring to in Section 2. – Article II – U.S. Constitution. Unless one believes the framers were naives, it is fair to assume they meant what they said…the US President can not pardon his way out of an impeachment…regardless of which officer is being impeached (please see below).

I believe, Patrick Fitzgerald and others have made a legal error in saying that the Libby commutation was legally permissible under the US Constitution. Impeachment is the only legal remedy available for removing “civil officers of the United States” reprieves are not permissible per section 2 article II of the US Constitution in cases of impeachment. Whether acted upon or not, this is a demonstrable case of impeachment.

Because a lot of folks out there believe the founding fathers meant something different from what they said in Section 2. – Article. II “…except in Cases of Impeachment.” Here are few examples:

“the president may not pardon someone who has been impeached” or “means that the president can’t vacate the results of an impeachment” or ” [Cases of Impeachment] does not come into play until the House approves an impeachment article” and so forth.

Okay let’s see how this thinking plays out:

A president commits a crime…Say he beats the First lady to death in the Lincoln bedroom with a lead pipe.

“Oops” he says, I better go pardon myself before anybody impeaches me.

Since some of you agree that “the president may not pardon someone who has been impeached” or “means that the president can’t vacate the results of an impeachment” or ” [Cases of Impeachment] does not come into play until the House approves an impeachment article”

The President who murders his wife and pardons himself a prior to Impeachment proceedings walks???

??????Do you really think the founding fathers were that stupid?????????

If what these folks say is true Nixon could have pardoned himself because impeachment proceding had not yet begun, there had only been hearings into the Watergate break in.

Again:

??????Do you really think the founding fathers were that stupid?????????

“…and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Section 2. – Article. II – U.S. Constitution