Flawed Premise

Yesterday I wrote an entry on why impeaching the President during wartime would not harm our democracy as some Bush supporters claim. As I do occasionally with some entries, I crossposted it to the LiveJournal Democrats community. There are two resident Bush supporters who troll that community; they always pop up in comments with defenses of Bush of a Hannity-esque quality. I was pleased to get responses from both. The first just wondered what exactly made me think Bush had done anything impeachable. The second (a little nicer) said it was well written, but I had a 'flawed premise'.

I responded to each. I wanted to repost those responses here, in case anyone reads this is interested...

To the first guy who said there was no crime at all committed:

If Bush's defense hangs on the Afghanistan war resolution, then yes he is in trouble. That resolution did not grant him the authority he claims it did. If you believe it did, then what limits do you believe there are on his power? If he can bypass judicial oversight (etc.) and do all these things, do you personally feel there are any limits on his 'wartime' power? Bush's argument is just the 2005 version of Nixon's executive privilege nonsense. We live in a democracy; there are rules and procedures to be followed.

Bill Clinton was impeached and I will go out on a limb and guess that you supported that. Why? Because he violated the law. Republicans back then assured everyone that was not a partisan act, but simply about the rule of law. We are now seeing how false and hypocritical that was.

PS- Members of Congress were quite clear the Afghanistan resolution did not grant him carte blanche war powers:
"Some people say that is a broad change in authorization to the Commander in Chief of this country. It is not. It is a very limited concept of giving him the authority to pursue those who have brought this terrible destruction to our country and to pursue those who have harbored them or assisted them and conspired with them in any way."
-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

"The body of this resolution is appropriately limited to those entities involved in the attacks that occurred on September 11th… It reiterates the existing constitutional powers of the President to take action to defend the United States, but provides no new or additional grant of powers to the President."
-Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

"In extending this broad authority to cover those ‘planning, authorizing, committing, or aiding the attacks’ it should go without saying, however, that the resolution is directed only at using force abroad to combat acts of international terrorism."
-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

"The resolution is not a blank check. We do this with our eyes open and in fervent prayer, especially the prayer that President Bush and his national security team will be lavished with wisdom from God above to use only that force which is truly necessary and only that force which is truly appropriate."
-Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ) [Congressional Record, 9/14/01]

To the second guy who said my premise was flawed:

Thanks for the compliment.

Regarding the idea that an argument for Bush's impeachment is flawed, I disagree. He broke the law; that much is clear. His only defense seems to rest on (as I wrote) that as a wartime President he must have the power to bypass the law. If you agree with that, that's very scary. Bush's use of the Afghanistan war resolution as a defense is the flimsiest excuse since "Executive privilege says these tapes belong to me!!".

The President had all the tools he needed to do the wiretaps. The FISA court is a secret court and barely a hurdle or a step; basically, it's a rubber stamp. They've almost never rejected a warrant. And if the President needs to order surveillance quickly in an emergency, he can certainly do so, but only has to then get a retroactive warrant within 72 hours. The only defense for why they didn't do that was because they were lazy. The embarassingly minimal requirements were just too cumbersome for him... and so the President deemed himself above the law.

A pretty scary notion considering we're supposedly spreading democracy all over the world.

Finally, if we accept Bush's defense that he had the right to bypass these requirements due to his 'inherent' powers as a wartime President, then where do we draw the line? If this is the case, then why bother with any laws? The President can do as he sees fit. The argument over the Patriot Act is moot; the President doesn't needs its provisions, he can just do it all anyway. John McCain and others wasted their time getting the President to agree to torture ban; the President can just order illegal torture when he wants if he says it was for 'national security' reasons. Etc etc...

We are right to defend freedom overseas, but it is hypocritical to be deeming the most basic aspects of a democracy moot simultaneously. If we do, our soldiers are dying for nothing, and we are headed down a very dangerous road that was supposed to have fixed after Nixon resigned.