When I say I want a more empathetic citizenry, a less punitive legal system, and more thoughtful governance, I’m looking for it across the board. My call for restorative justice — as opposed to our too punitive retributive justice — is not one reserved only for the poor criminal.

You are so very right.

You're parsing trying to justify yours and Joe's comments.

Your first two paragraphs are technically correct you made no direct claims about Greenwald or polarizing political boxes. However when you reference a certain point of view as being positive and noteworthy then immediately attack the opposite view as being negative with particular mention given to a vocal proponent of that point of view, a reasonable person can make certain assumptions. I was wrong for assuming, but I don't think my assumptions were wrong.

Also, my initial comment on impeachment specifically called for a through and respectful process, so I don’t think we are in disagreement there. But I think where we differ is I believe we must have an impeachment no matter where it leads (Bush, then Cheney if needed). You on the other hand believe like so many others that this would be too disruptive to the American psyche, this is wrong. The American people deserve a way of cleansing themselves of the corruption and disgrace that these criminals have wrought on our country and Constitution.

And no voting them out of office just doesn't do it; we need a full accounting of the damage they’ve done with punishment to follow. Is this vindictive? YES! Is this vengeful? YES!! Is this needed? HELL YES!!! We need to make an example of them, so that the next two bit politician who thinks they can ride roughshod over our Constitution knows their will be a price to pay.

P.S.

These men have no shame, so don’t think after leaving office they will hide themselves away because of the harm they’ve done. I fully expect to see Bush a year from now zipping around the world laughing as he basks in the glow of being an ex-President and if you think this is OK because we need to move on, then you and I will continue to differ on this subject.

“Fringe nut' is an intellectually lazy insult that can be hurled at anybody, even the one making the above statement. Who but a fringe nut would take breaking Constitutional .law less seriously than swiping a candy bar at the deli.?
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How times have changed! When Nixon was impeached, his own party broke ranks to do the right thing. Now, the right thing is defined purely by whether it hurts friend or foe, benefits me or someone else.

The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire has such poignant parallels.
Consider the Fall stage.

Second, if you follow the source material and my comment. you will find NO CLAIM that .calling for adherence to Constitutional law and accountability are symptoms of being in a polarizing political box. That's either your misunderstanding or your invention.

The topic for discussion is how to go about it. Many a noble pursuit has brought ruin and destruction because of a misguided manner of execution.
Unforseeen consequences can occasionally be excused, but in this case, there are clearly foreseeable and detrimonious consequesnces that could and should be avoided.

Articles of Impeachment, as they pertain to an individual, are allegations. To have a successful impeachment, you need clear, irrefutable proof. The proof must be so strong that it can overpower the inevitable defense arguments, and those there would be many, believe me.
After all, Bush had lawyers advising him at every step.
When arguing law, things are not as clear as we would think, btw. That;s why there are 9 in the SCOTUS , not 8 or 10. Even the Constitution is subject to interpretation.

Impeachment is about as serious an undertaking as there can be for a country.
To try and fail would be devastating, and that's why extre care and caution are necessary instead of a hot-headed rush into the fray.

Even assuming, a successful impeachment of Bush while he is in office, what would be the result? Either Cheney would serve out the term or Cheney, too, could be impeached, causing a crisis of goverment of unprecedented proportions. Those are not very good prospects for a country fighting two wars, contemplating a third and gripped by such partisanship that it is ripping the country apart as it is.

If an impeachment is to do more good than harm, it can't be approached as revenge against individuals. It has to be handled as the resittution of the proper role of the the presidency and the three equal branches of government.

The importance of not having even the appearance of political partisanship is that this being the second impeachment in a row, we could easily enter into a sequence of successive impeachments as political revenge. The law can always be twisted by political hack lawyers to justify such actions, just like it was twisted by Bush's lawyers. to justify what he did.

No. This takes very careful thinking through all the way to future consequences, not only the immediate. And that's where Greenwald and the progressives fail, IMO.They don't' give enough consideration to the HOW and the consequences of a particular strategy.

It can be done, but only with the proper care and caution, or we could all regret it. .

Yours is a canned left wing speech. I just refuted it with the canned truth…….

However let me try to help you understand the truth.

George W. Bush decided to use NSA wiretaps which have ultimately been ruled unconstitutional. He went to the DOJ and got a ruling and they told him go ahead. He did. IN ADDITION…………as per DEMOCRAT George Tenets book the leadership of the democrats as well as the GOP were called in and briefed and advised on what was going on and they said nothing. They continued to say nothing until the antiwar picked up steam and then they began grumbling about it.

Doesnt matter. They knew, agreed to and okayed it. So impeach them too.

DOJ. Gonzales broke the law. Fine. I admit that. I have no problem prosecuting him and his underlings who helped him break the law. However GWB had no hand in the hiring of those people and to think that the president of the United States is involved in the hiring of personell at DOJ is just ludacrious.

Lets see what else has Bush done wrong. Oh yeah. CIA and lying to America to go to war. The House and the Senate saw those intell reports. These reports are prepared for Bush as well as the CIA oversight committees. They all saw the intell. Many Democrats stood on the steps of the Capitol and said “We have seen the Evidence” now lets go get Hussein. Fine. Then lets try them too along with the impeachment. That would include some rather famous democrats.

I could go on and on.

bottom line. The democrats do NOT want to impeach Bush because they know that for one there is nothing there and for two if they do then they are going to take down half the democratic party as well has half of the GOP.

Easier solution. This election vote for the guy thats not running for reelection. No matter the party. Send a message to congress.

It is awful reasoning, and worse — it was the creation by the judiciary of law (which is reserved to legislatures) out of thin air plus the Justices' own whims. The “trimester rule” (which has no basis in federal or constitutional law whatsoever) is perhaps the most glaring part of that ruling.

But then, shocking as the ruling was, it was merely grown upon other judicial activist shockers such as Baker v. Carr.

“Here, not Iraq! Here, not Iraq!”

As for Kucinich and the fringe nuts — there are better things they can do to themselves with their impeachment materials.

Bush put people in the DOJ that told him, after much parsing of words, it was legal to do clearly illegal things (like torture and spying without warrants). Their legal advice doesn't immunize Bush, it makes them accessories to a crime.

Anyone who defends Bush on these grounds is guilty of supporting an authoritarian system of government. Let's call it what it is.

“And fun to have one willing to point out that no less and eminence than Thomas Jefferson believed that the constitution should be rewritten with each generation”

I thought it was every 100 years?

“Why is it that people want to Impeach Bush for asking the DOJ for a ruling. They get the ruling that said is constitutional and then proceed. Later its determined to be unconstitutional and they quit. This is how the government has functioned for 200 years.

Case in point. Washington DC banned the possesson and ownership of firearms for 30 years. It was ruled unconstitutional. Does that mean that all the Mayors and city officals are guilty of crimes against the constitution? No It simply means they made a mistake when passing a law and then enforcing it.”

These are completely different things and it's disingenuous to pretend like they aren't. Plus the DOJ IS the executive branch. The whole point of impeachment is twofold: get rid of bad apples and also create a check on the executive branch. The first President that was impeached was for a cabinet selection for heaven's sake. It is obvious that the President has broken many many laws and international treaties and Congress could easily impeach him.

That said, they would have to go after both Cheney and Bush and that would create a Constitutional/political crisis. Congress's greatest failure is not that it didn't impeach him, but that it didn't restrain his illegal behavior and in fact codified much of it.

Lastly, I thought it was a near legal consensus that Roe v Wade had awful reasoning? Now there are many cases that used the same reasoning as precedent for all sorts of things and it could all come unraveling one day.

No, Greenwald is not a Liberal version of “Right wing attack dogs”. What he is, is an American calling for an adherence to the Constitution and the Laws of the Land. He has written on the law breaking done by the Bush Administration and the enablement of it by the current Republican and Democratic Parties. He has asked for the Congress to hold the President accountable for his illegal actions and if the Congress refuses to do so – - what ever the reason (usually money and fear) – - he has called for challenging them either through calls / mailings or most recently primary challenges. If that is considered being a “Right wing attack dogs”, then wow you've downscaled it since the time of Gingrich and DeLay.

Also, while Obama and Sunstein may think outside of “polarized political boxes”, when has following the Constitution and the Law of the Land become a polarizing political box?

I see you're following the Rightwing three step argument plan.

Step 1 – Create strawman: Where, oh where did I say anything about the Bush's politicization of the DOJ. While I believe it was morally and ethically wrong I don't know if at this time it is criminally wrong and I don't think it would meet the “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” threshold. So I didn't mention it, you did.

Step 2 – Knock down strawman, proving the rightness of your argument: you not only knocked down your strawman you buried it; labeling it as nothing more than the AG being “inept and breaking of some federal hiring laws”.

Step 3 – Insult your opponent: Anyone who calls for Bus's impeachment you accused of “partisan hackery” and must “hate Bush so fffffing much that they cant think rationally”. No, we are not partisan hacks or irrational, what we are, are Americans calling for a return to the standards that was set by the writers of the Constitution. When the President commits an impeachable offense it is the duty of the Congress to investigate him and if evidence is found of a crime they should impeach. You may know it by another term LAW and ORDER.

If we elect John McCain then the country will continue on its downward slide with the rule of law and democracy destroyed.

Shout it brother.

Praise be to Obama. The hope. The shining light of Democracy. Sing his praises.

Fear the Republican. Electing them will give us 100 years of war and the end of democracy in America.

Can I hear an Amen?

The Messiah One is landing at noon. Throw rose petals on the runway.

His observations about how new technologies augment fragmentation and diminish an individual's exposure to broad-based information and, consequently, the capacity for individual thinking is spot on. One has only to read the majority of blogs and the comments on posts for the evidence.

Both Obama and Sunstein can think outside of polarized poliitcal boxes, and I think that's why neither their foes nor many of their supporters really get what Obama is about or the kind of change he is proposing. They, for the most part, remain stuck in those boxes and the echo chambers of segregated groups.

People like Glen Greenwald and many progressives are the mirror image of the Right wing attack dogs: either you're with us, or you're against us, black and white, search and destroy, take no prisoners. Unfortuantely, these appear to be in the majority.

The question of impeachment is very difficult. I think Bush should be impeached for his destruction of the the three EQUAL branches of government, among other things, but I also agree that it should not be a punitive process. Democrats would have considerable support from conservative thinkers of the principled, pre political-power-at-any-price kind if they could do it in a non-partisan, non-punative manner. Several conservatives have written and spoken on the subject.

To do it right, however, requires that Obama be elected. Because McCain has taken this election into the Rovian mud hole, and becasue I'm not sure enough people can rise above the shouting to listen to reason, I'm not certain that it will happen. McCain could win, enshrine the Bush-Cheny legacy, and then what?
Then, I predict a steady downward slide for all that has made America the special country that it has been, with the rule of law and democracy left sad and empty shells of what once was.
It would be death of everything that is best about America, and i watch the possibility with dread and loathing.

Why is it that Alberto Gonzales and some of his colleagues are considered inept, broke some federal hiring laws and we want to impeach Bush. Bush didnt hire them.

What ever happened to Harry S Truman's “The Buck stops here”? and by the way Bush did hire Gonzalez.

She understands fully that the day Obama steps foot in the White House that the Right/GOP is going to be after Obama to have him Impeached. They will stop at nothing.

Whether or not Bush is impeached.

The only thing the Repigs have learned from the last eight years is that the Dems are a bunch of spineless cowards who will not fight for themselves and that bipartisanship is just another word for date rape.

Why is it that people want to Impeach Bush for asking the DOJ for a ruling. They get the ruling that said is constitutional and then proceed. Later its determined to be unconstitutional and they quit. This is how the government has functioned for 200 years.

Case in point. Washington DC banned the possesson and ownership of firearms for 30 years. It was ruled unconstitutional. Does that mean that all the Mayors and city officals are guilty of crimes against the constitution? No It simply means they made a mistake when passing a law and then enforcing it.

Why is it that those at the DOJ fired political appointees which is entirely appropriate and yet the firestorm resulting from it, turned it into a political scandal? Why is it that Alberto Gonzales and some of his colleagues are considered inept, broke some federal hiring laws and we want to impeach Bush. Bush didnt hire them.

This is the kind of partisan hackery that Pelosi and Company have been trying to prevent for one very good reason.

What goes around comes around.

She understands fully that the day Obama steps foot in the White House that the Right/GOP is going to be after Obama to have him Impeached. They will stop at nothing.

Will it be fair to the good senator to be impeached if his DOJ screws up and one of the underlings doesnt hire a few Neocons?

I know I cant even touch the “I hate Bush so fffffing much that I cant think rationally” but Pelosi and company have been thinking rationally.

They fully understand they need to break the cycle. Because what goes around comes around. Their turn is next. Because if you go back and look at EVERY administration they have ALL had their share of arrests, convictions and downright scandals.

The Bush impeachment however, from what little we know today, would seem to be a slam dunk. The already confirmed crimes of Bush and his cronies (Cheney, Rove, et al) – - illegal wiretapping, manipulation of intelligence to lead us into a war, etc. – - would easily meet the threshold of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Also imagine what an honest independent prosecutor (Patrick Fitzgerald type) with subpoena power would dig up on these guys.

If the impeachment process was conducted in a through and respectful manner I believe the American people would gladly welcome an impeachment as a way to close the book on one of the worst episodes in our history. I know I would.

P.S.

The ones who would scream partisanship and see this as a witch hunt are the same people who thought Nixon did no wrong and Reagan was a God among men (see Cheney for example). There would be nothing and I mean nothing you could do to convince those people that their second coming (Bush) and his disciples had done anything wrong so why try. I would however keep an eye on them because when frustrated they have a tendency to lash out in violence and I would also keep them away from the levers of power as they tend to do great harm to our country and our constitution when given the opportunity (again see Cheney as an example).

You lost me when you started rationalizing Sunstein's excusing of Bush's criminality. It then took you 1,989 words to explain your rationalization, you should've have taken the hint of the power outage and passed on this post.

Whatever happened to the law and order crowd, I guess it only applies to when its is a poor minority committing a crime, then its usually lock em' and throw away the key. However when it is a white man with money/power committing a crime (possibly treason) there will always be someone out there trying to rationalize why they should not go to jail.

Glenn Greenwald has commented on this and I've noticed it also; Its funny how the line has shifted, holding the President and his lackeys accountable for their crimes are now – - what did you call it, oh yeah – - the Left Liberal position.