GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT

Source: Time Magazine (Brooks Kraft/Corbis)

Joe Klein, in the latest issue of Time, considers that Bush has not committed the “treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanours” of the Constitution that would require impeachment by Congress. In fact, he considers talk of impeachment to counterproductive and nutso. There are, he alleges, no high crimes, just a bad presidency. Purgegate, as one example, is a relatively minor matter. Klein’s article, if within the frame of MSM conventional thinking, is an indictment of Bush for maladministration and personal failings.

Others have taken a contrary view, and have been arguing the case for impeachment for over a year. Commentators, including blog writers, are I suppose entitled to make declarative statements. A reader might be expected to find consideration for the case made for impeachment.

David Lindorff, who with Barbara Olshansky wrote, The Case for Impeachment, the grounds for impeachment are as real as they were, but that the priority should be changed. He writes, via Common Dreams:

At this point, arguably, Bush¹s greatest crime is not the Iraq War, terrible as that has been. Nor is it his revocation of habeas corpus or his authorization of torture. It is not the usurpation of the legislative power of the Congress. It is not the felonious violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, or his obstruction of the investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

His biggest crime is a deliberate campaign of inaction and active obstruction in the face of a clear need for the United States to act decisively to stop or slow catastrophic climate change.

The Bush Administration and its sponsors, the special interests, have not only done nothing, and so made things worse, but lied to the people about the dangers posed to the society.

Joe Klein’s argument is supported by Lindoff:

Stupidity, pig-headedness and yahooism are not impeachable offenses. The Founding Fathers pointedly rejected a proposal by George Washington that maladministration be included as grounds for impeachment. Rather, they stuck with “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which they took to mean acts that threatened Constitutional government, or endangered the people or the nation.

And Lindoff then argues that Bush by his dithering, interference, indifference and active obstruction has created the conditions that will lead to predictable consequences. So Bush should be impeached for negligence.

The question not asked, as far as I am aware, by Lindoff or Kein, is how did so plainly an unfit person ever become president, and be re-elected?