In dealing with the current crisis in the Roman Catholic church of child abuse by its priests, the symptom the church is confronting is the abuse, but the underlying disease is a love of power. So long as Benedict addresses only the symptom and not the disease, real healing cannot occur. He called for “decisive action” and “complete honesty and transparency” in his letter to Ireland. A good place to start might be for more bishops to offer their resignations, and for Benedict to start accepting them.

House vote to “rebuke” Joe Wilson for insulting the President on the floor of Congress: 240-179.
Republican Yeas: 7. Democratic Nays: 12.

House vote to “condemn” MoveOn for insulting General Petraeus in a newspaper ad: 341-79.
Democratic Yeas: 146. Republican Nays: 0.

Last week I decided it was time to do a post on inherent contempt. I pulled a ton of research, filled up a 3-ring binder, highlighted all sorts of relevant passages, and blocked out some time on Sunday to write.

Then on Saturday, a Rutgers professor named Frank Askin beat me to it.

Under our Constitution there are various acts a President may take which are “unreviewable.” For example, you may have heard — over and over again — that the USE of the Pardon Power is unreviewable. This is correct. However, many folks don’t know what the term “unreviewable” actually means. Like so many things in law, a word you think you know may not mean what you think it means.

Unreviewable simply

Let me say straight out. Punishing Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence with censure would be like punishing Libby’s obstruction of justice with just 400 hours of community service. It would simply reinforce the notion that Bush’s Administration is above the law. It would be a punishment wholly unfit for the crime that has been committed:

In response to Scarecrow’s post on impeachment, I wrote at Needlenose on Tuesday, updating my previous qualms about needing to build a popular consensus:

Before yesterday, there was a public consensus that Dubya is a bad president — but not that he can’t be tolerated in office a moment longer. . .

Remember a while back I wrote about priming the pump for impeachment. I wonder if I was picking up psychic vibrations from my home state senator, Chuck Schumer.  I saw Senator Schumer on Hardball (twice–I was home with the flu) and he is pitching the idea of the Senate holding a no confidence vote indicating that they have [...]

  Lest there be any confusion about where Chuck Schumer stands with regard to you in the grassroots, gentle reader, we have this from Ruppert Murdoch's New York Post to go along with Chuck throwing Howard Dean under the bus on Worst Person in the World Bill O'Reilly's show on Murdoch's Fox News.  If there [...]

I know they’re the only game in town, but as Glenn Greenwald says, it’s hard to get behind a party when its members refuse to stand for anything. Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday essentially assured that President Bush’s nominee to head the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, would not only be confirmed by the [...]

BREAKING:  Pete Williams just said on MSNBC that the FBI has executed search warrants for the home and office of Dusty Foggo.  I’m sure there will be lots more on this — and I’ll let you know when we get it.  For everyone who thought Fornigate would go away, looks like it may be heating up.  (And FYI, [...]