Politics: No more "and another thing"s, already!

[doc_strange]

My friend qwrrty is angry about the Libby commutation - as I think just about everyone has a right to be, and about which even many conservative libertarian types are pretty darned disapproving. Makes me angry, too. But then I already was angry at this administration - and this is a very small bit of straw to break the camel's back; more importantly, when there's 500lbs of crap on the camel, don't obsess about the straw. Even if it's the straw that breaks the back, it is just a straw compared to the 500lbs.

I think it's terrifying how quickly the press has almost forgotten to mention the actual big issues related to the administration in favor of the issue/story flavor of the day. I don't think Bush could have planned this one better - and maybe his coterie did plan for this effect. For every headline story on Libby, that's one more break in the drumbeat about all the other - some deeply pressing - issues. So, for example, holding US Citizens without habeas and without charges, wiretapping well beyond 4th Amendment provisions, and knowingly subjecting or submitting detainees to cruel and unusual punishment (torture-like methods) gets put by the wayside because some flunky gets caught out lying to investigators in an investigation that turns out to be moot.

Yes, Libby's case is important because it goes back to the rationales for invading Iraq, but... let's not call for impeachment over a (patently legal if morally wrong) commutation. Let's not scrabble in the dirt looking for reasons it might be impeachable, either. Bigger issues out there; limited time.

qwrrty calls the Pelosi crew gutless for taking impeachment off the table. And I think that is a fair characterization, but maybe "planless" is more like it. Where's the strategy to remake or even repair the America we had just 10 years ago, when Presidential calls for sweeping snoop powers (oh, yes, let's not give Mr. Clinton a free pass on chipping away at the 4th Amendment... please) got voted down, and that was the end of it? Back then, the reaction was not a "we'll do it anyway" disdain for the rule of law (to Clinton's credit). Now, instead I see a strategy to just burn through the next two years, crow about how munch money each candidate has raised to buy the Presidency, and try to get all three branches so a different set of special interests can have its time at the soda fountain.

You want to see what happens when a super-majority of seats gets grabbed by a giddy-to-be-in-power-again party that's not actually clean as a whistle, then please look at IL! We had a Republican party exposed as SO corrupt, and which was SO torn down by Fitzgerald, that in my district, the Repubs funded no opponent for US Congress, and none for most state seats either. And what did the Dems do once in office with a super-majority and governorship? They pass a few key items that could have been negotiated by a solid Dem front years ago, then go on an I'll-pass-yours-if-you'll-pass-mine, edge-issue legislation spree so crazy it boggles the mind (including mandating anti-bacterial scrub be used for all lunchtime handwashing by school children, put forward by a self-described germaphobe who is a compulsive handwasher... it passed, of course), thereby creating a backlash *within their own super-majority* from folks whose most controversial items didn't make it, thus undermining the party's ability to even get a simple majority together on no-brainer issues. Now they are unable to even pass a budget, despite TOTAL control of both houses and the governorship.

Gimme a leftie libertarian who knows how to ensure accountability for government funds or a conservative libertarian who thinks government should get out of people's minds, bedrooms and bodies. Those perfect people don't exist, but blend Howard Dean and Ron Paul and you might get someone like it. Get important stuff done, done efficiently, done well, and get it out of the game of nonsense minutia. Any idea how much time and how many bills are passed congratulating sports teams? Have a look. That's the work of a government pressed with weighty issues?

Scooter deserved the sentence; the Pres's commutation is patently legal and it even has precedent in circumstances akin to these (though about 80 years back), yet it was obviously self-serving, maybe payola, and really politically stupid. But it's over.

Warrantless wiretapping, the selective suspension of habeas, use of uncertain and very questionable interrogation techniques, and possibly extraordinary rendition continue. Today. Some of those are, or the actions supporting them are, if charges were brought, like as not to stand scrutiny as impeachable crimes.

Yet STOPPING those abuses is more important still. So in the end I agree with a comment in qwrrty's journal by qnetter - moving on means MOVING ON. We have to break the cycle of government run by moralistic urges executed by any means necessary. That includes when we think "our side" is right. No one gets a free pass on hypocrisy just because the other party was hypocritical or even evil, first.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

If Bush and Cheney can be made to disappear because of the Libby pardon when the habeas suspension or the warrantless wiretapping or other affronts didn't, I'll be happy. Much like Capone and tax evasion, let's get the weasels out.

As to Pelosi's pledge of "no impeachment"... yeah, gutless or plan-less will do.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Hmm. If they can be made to "disappear" on such a perfectly legal nothing, then so can the next president... who you might like. Which is to say, you approve the complete disregard for the law by one party, but condemn it by the other? Sounds like a totalitarian stance, even if you want a beneficent dictator. Either everyone gets the rule of law, or in the end, no one will.

All or nothing means all you get is forms of tyranny. One reason we haven't had it in this country is taking "all" the federal government by a party didn't really mean total control. It seems no one these days remembers that the fed is a limited government. No, we just want "our" people in no matter what it takes, because it means all or nothing.

[ivy]

That's one of the big reasons that I think we *should* impeach these guys... not over Scooter Libby (that was disgusting and revealing, but legal), but over their ridiculous expansion of executive power and gutting of oversight, as well as the war. I probably won't get my way on this, and I agree that rebuilding the balance of power is most important, but I think it's a grave injustice if we don't hold the current administration accountable for their assaults against the Constitution.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Like I said to qnetter: you may be right, but the consequences are very hard to swallow. Abandoning the option of impeachment entirely seems as though it means we are giving up on the very possibility of holding the president accountable for his crimes -- and that includes the warrantless wiretaps, holding prisoners without trial or counsel, and all of the other crimes you mention, which I agree are far far worse than the Libby commutation.

It's immensely difficult for me to see how refusing to impeach this president because we don't want impeachment to become a standard game honors the constitution. On the contrary, it seems as though it sends the president the message that he is above the law, after all.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

I do see that last point, but I have to say, it kind of freaks me out when a leftie talks about how we have to "send a message." To my ear, that's right-wing speak for "do what's legal or not, I don't care, but it is important HOW WE LOOK."

Getting voted the heck out by a landslide would do a good job of sending the message. Impeachment will just strengthen the divide and kill any chance of such a landslide. Heck, much of what's going on nationally is a small echo of what's happening in IL. There will be a backlash in IL - the Dems here have blown - completely - any claim they had on being better than their predecessors.

Nationally, strengthen the divisive issues, and we'll be looking at people like Pat Buchanan coming again onto the stage, as the right pulls in all the far-to-the-edge people it can (much as the left did not so long ago with the like of Mr. Sharpton) to get that magic 50.01% in the states "that matter." Meaning more pitches to either extreme, while most people are left voting only for the extreme nearest them. Bad mix of trends in every country where it has happened before.

[ivy]

I think there is some importance in sending a message -- not for partisan politics, but for global politics. I think it would do immense good for American public image for the world to see that we castigate and fire an administration for waging illegal war, lying to the people, and removing fundamental rights. (I wouldn't cry if they got impeached over Libby, but I think that's not the real reason to do it.) If we were willing to impeach Clinton and not W/Cheney, I think that does make us look awful in the eyes of the world, and does great harm to us as a nation. If Clinton had done anything as egregiously awful, I'd have been crying for his head on a platter too.

I am appalled and embarassed that our message to the world is "we don't care enough to have done anything about these guys, uh, sorry about all those deaths". Or worse, "Fuck yeah!".

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Hmm. By "sending a message" I do mean acting because it's about our appearance, whether legal or not, about stretching things to make a case. Your reasoning on international opinion is maybe the only reasonable reason for "sending a message" I have heard - mind, we could also make it clear the Clinton impeachment was an unfortunate political farce, and instead of sending messages, make sure we work to actually repair the damage done. Mind, if there's evidence to nail the responsible people for heavy 4th A. abuses, I think it needs to be done. But there is a huge mess these fine elected people were supposed to fix, and all I see are the pet projects of the last 6 years being put forward.

How about, as cheesetruck says, starting to dismantle the portions of the PATRIOT Act that could only have passed because of the panic at the time, and because practically no one read it? How about figuring out how to handle Iraq after the seemingly inevitable total withdrawal, without callously leaving the country to its own personal genocidal civil war? Our record on that sort of thing is really continuing to suck.

Congress really does have limited time. Wish they'd use it for more than figuring out how to make the next election even sweeter for themselves. My respect for the few senators and reps who have managed to cross the aisle, actually compromise, and get good things done that the country needs... well, it continues to grow.

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

qwrrty calls the Pelosi crew gutless for taking impeachment off the table. And I think that is a fair characterization.

It's not. Charlie Rangel was on the CSPAN book program, and they asked him if the democrats have given any serious consideration to impeachment, and his answer was very pragmatic: "No. We don't have the votes for it."

And he's right. The democrats can do more to accomplish good things in Congress right now by doing what they can to get past the previous six years of partisanship, and actually trying to reach across the aisle to make things happen (the immigration bill was a really nice attempt, even though it failed) than they can in pushing an entirely symbolic and ultimately futile impeachment effort.

The neocons are toast in a year and a half regardless. Instead of making everyone hold their breath until that happens, how about actually, y'know, doing some fucking work?

I say this as a lifelong Republican, who would still like to see Bush and Cheney impeached. Sadly, it ain't gonna happen - but that's not gutless or planless, that's just pragmatism. The political reality is that there just ain't the votes for it.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

The neocons are toast in a year and a half regardless. Instead of making everyone hold their breath until that happens, how about actually, y'know, doing some fucking work?
Well that I agree with. I can't explain why things aren't getting done with a bipartisan effort, except, you know, that they ARE holding their breath in order not to Accomplish Anything That Might Be A Problem, in order to gain the presidency. And then do stuff without threat of a veto, which frankly, scares me. I am really most pleased with our national government when it's branches are divided and only What Needs Doing that Reasonable People Can Agree Upon gets done. Dominance by one party or political deadlock/brinksmanship is a despicable game played by those waiting for total power. Such people as play such games, neocon or neo-liberal, disturb me.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Well, I must be tired of politics - I used the wrong "its/it's" up there.

SIGH

[cheesetruck.livejournal.com]

on impeaching: Yeah sure whatever, impeach with a year left, great use of time there. "Gesture" and all that - ya know, we've been given a gesture every freaking day since a certain day in 2001 and NOW you're going to do something about it? How about this: instead of bitching that the Executive branch is being shitty, let's fix the legislative branch so they fucking do their job right. Impeach the fucking patriot act.

I know, wrong word, I don't care.

Point is: removing the needle that injected the fatal dose of heroin is NOT MAKING IT BETTER. Outlawing heroin? Gee thanks, how about I give you a gesture for your useless outlawing gesture. You should know it by now, America, it's the one that comes from the Executive branch. No, what needs to be done is to FIX THE PROBLEM WHERE PEOPLE GO "oh, ok, sure, heroin is good for me, whatever you say US Government." Followed by "thank you sir may i have another"