The West Wing Wizard’s Shrinking Presidency
April 29th, 2008Finally, finally someone in the Washington press corps has the guts to say it.
I guess it takes the MSNBC funny man from Keith Olbermann’s show to nail Bush but good. I watched the press conference with king George the 43rd this morning partly in agony, when I wasn’t laughing out loud, before and after most of the talking heads stumbled all over themselves trying to trump everyone else in saying Obama’s candidacy is over due to the comments of the Rev. Wright.
Dana Milbank in his “Washington Sketch” column was able to make light of Bush’s attempt at word sorcery and nail him to the wall at the same time. Too bad there’s no local columnists anywhere who are willing to do the same thing, except, er, here on the Web.
This is so good for a change I’m going to post a significant portion for your enjoyment and/or enlightenment, in case you happen to be an Alabamian who believes Mike Royer’s account of Bush blaming Congress on the local NBC affiliate had any resemblance to reality. Maybe you’ve never read the Washington Post. Here’s a sample.
The incredible shrinking presidency of George Walker Bush hit a new milestone yesterday: The commander in chief turned to sorcery.
“You know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I’d be waving it,” Bush informed Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times in a Rose Garden news conference. She had asked him about the recession, which everybody seems to be acknowledging but Bush.
Further, the wizard of the West Wing said he would use his supernatural powers, if he had them, to conjure up lower gas prices. “I think that if there was a magic wand and say, ‘Okay, drop price,’ I’d do that,” said the illusionist.
Abracadabra! Watch the president pull a rabbit out of a hat! …
Well, not this time. “There is no magic wand to wave right now,” Bush finally confessed…
But the president had something else up his sleeve. He used his appearance before the White House press corps to perform one of the oldest tricks in the book: blaming Congress. He faulted lawmakers 16 times in his opening statement alone….
“Congress has repeatedly blocked efforts,” he protested. “Congress continues to block provisions. . . . Congress needs to clear away obstacles. . . . Congress is considering a massive, bloated farm bill. . . . Congress needs to do more. . . . I ask Congress to do its part.”
(Some of) the reporters in the audience didn’t fall for the blame-Congress sleight-of-hand.
“Gas prices have gone up, foreclosures have gone up, there have been layoffs, news just this morning that consumer confidence is down yet again,” recited the Associated Press’s Jennifer Loven. “Isn’t it time to think about doing more?”
“Were you premature in saying that the U.S. economy is not in a recession?” needled Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters.
“Americans believe we are in a recession,” pointed out American Urban Radio’s April Ryan. “What will it take for you to say those words, that we are in a recession?”
The illusionist swirled his cape and turned that into a question about Congress.
“I mean, you know, the words on how to define the economy don’t reflect the anxiety the American people feel,” (Bush) ventured.
Rubbing his nose, he continued: “The average person doesn’t really care what we call it. . . . These are difficult times. And the American people know it, and they want to know whether or not Congress knows it.”
***
But diversions would get Bush only so far. After the White House called the news conference, but half an hour before Bush stepped from the Oval Office, the Conference Board announced that consumer confidence fell in April to its lowest point since the Iraq invasion in 2003. That started a new sell-off on Wall Street, where investors await today’s report on economic growth in the first quarter.“Are you concerned that they will show us to officially be in a recession?” Stolberg asked Bush.
“I think they’ll show that we’re - it’s a very slow economy,” he replied.
The Washington Post’s Dan Eggen tried to put Bush in one of his least favorite places - the psychoanalyst’s couch.
“You’ve expressed frustration with Congress,” he pointed out. “Are you frustrated? Are you angry? And do you have any real hope of being able to work with this Congress this year?”
Bush looked around, as if puzzled. “I believe that they’re letting the American people down, is what I believe,” he answered.
A chief way in which Congress is letting the American people down, the president said, is by refusing to approve oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (what a dumbass).
“They’ve repeatedly blocked environmentally safe exploration in ANWR,” he said, depriving the nation of “27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel every day.” This was one of the oldest tricks under Bush’s cloak - he has been making the ANWR case, unsuccessfully, for eight years — and his delivery was a bit rusty. “Repeatedly” came out as “repleatedly,” and “27 million gallons” became “27 millions of gallons.”
Reporters quickly pointed out that, whatever the merits of oil exploration in ANWR, it is a long-term proposal that won’t help this summer’s gas prices. “Opening up ANWR is not long-term,” Bush objected. “It’s intermediate-term.”
So now the president is reduced to arguing the difference between long-term and intermediate-term. His is a slow and torturous disappearing act.
Who cares what some reverend told the Washington press corps. Bush is the real idiot in the room who has done considerable damage to his country and committed crimes against the Constitution and humanity for which he should be tried and convicted.
The Post also has this story for Wednesday’s paper (my improved headline).
Bush Tries to Recycle Tired, Failed Policies
(The New York Times basically continues to kiss Bush’s ass in their coverage today, even though their correspondent was on the butt end of the attempted hit by the prez. Why they take it dog only knows.)
Wouldn’t we all be having so much more fun if we had an impeachment trial to look forward to this summer?
That would certainly divert the media away from Obama’s former paster. I mean who cares?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could abide by the United States Constitution and get god out of our political campaigns - and our government policy discussions?
What does it have to do with rising gas and food prices?
The war in Iraq and our looted treasury?
Rebuilding New Orleans or unsafe products from China, where almost everything is now made - rather than here?
Would someone please tell the American people on their dog damned television screens that what Bush has done is not working? Cannot work?
Does Obama have any answers? Will he do a better job? Will Hillary or McCain?
I don’t know, but I know this Bush government has got to go, and the sooner the better.
Wouldn’t we all be having so much more fun if we had an impeachment trial to look forward to this summer?
Tags: Impeach President Bush
April 30th, 2008 at 11:03 am
You’re pretty much right on about Bush, Glynn.
In seven years, Bush has:
*attempted the most egregious shredding of the Bill of Rights since FDR
*led the nation into a senseless, bloody, costly and immoral war in Iraq
*created huge current federal deficit (not to mention trillions in new unfunded liabilities) after inheriting a surplus
*used the power of government at every turn against perceived political enemies and on behalf of well-connected corporate buddies
This is not how the chief magistrate of a constitutionally-limited federal republic ought to behave. But as I have noted in other posts here, Bush has plenty of precedent, dating back to Teddy Roosevelt. The main difference is that Bush is here now, as we are, and his attempts at creating a defacto dictatorship are particularly outrageous.
Future presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, will be hard pressed to resist the temptation to build on the Bush power mongering precedents.
My own view at this point is that the presidency as an institution has become distorted and out of control. The sensible option — if we value liberty and don’t relish the idea of living in a 21st century version of the Roman Empire — again in my opinion, is to adopt the Swiss model of a plural presidency.
The plural presidency should be designed to have individuals of significantly different views on board at all times, which would act as a break on abuse of power. And, it would obviate all the silly monarchial trappings that have accrued to the one-person presidency as well as the frightening notions of those hold, or want to hold, the office.
Those notions include Bush’s claim via Gonzales that in time of war, the president can arrest anyone, anywhere, U.S. citizen or not, and hold that person in prison as long as the president likes. On the other side, they include Hillary Clinton’s idea that the president should be “commander in chief of the economy.”
The celebration of Bush’s retirement back to the ranch in Crawford next January 20th will likely only last a short time, after which we’ll discover what devilment the new president is planning.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Impeachment
By David Swanson
There is a widespread myth that an impeachment cannot happen in the space of the nine months Bush and Cheney are scheduled to remain in office. But I’m unable to find any past impeachment that took as long as nine months. It’s messy comparing one impeachment to another, as they are complicated and varying processes. But a few things are clear: most impeachment efforts achieve important results quickly, without actually achieving impeachment (think Elliot Spitzer or Alberto Gonzales); it is not uncommon for impeachment efforts to begin later in an administration than where we are now (think Andrew Johnson, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman); while preliminary investigations of the sort that have been done on Bush and Cheney for the past year and a half can be dragged out for months, impeachments tend not to last long; and while Senate trials can be delayed and dragged out for many months, impeachments in the House tend to be short-lived events.
An impeachment of Bush and/or Cheney for an indisputable offense (refusing subpoenas, refusing to enforce contempt citations, rewriting laws with signing statements, openly violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, etc.) could take literally one day. Such a thing would not be unprecedented. President Andrew Johnson was impeached three days after the offense for which he was impeached. Senator William Blount was impeached four days after the offense for which he was impeached.
There is no reason impeachment hearings on Cheney or Bush should be limited to the simplest crimes or rushed through at top speed. Public education might benefit from a slower process. My point is only that it is possible to impeach rapidly. A senate trial can also serve as an educational forum. Below are some of the dates I’ve been able to find on how long past impeachments have taken. A better researcher might add to this collection. In several cases, I have dates for the duration of the Senate trial, but not for the House impeachment, the duration of which may in fact have been negligible.
A Senate trial can also be completed quickly, and there is no requirement or precedent for including every obvious impeachable offense. (In fact, there is no precedent for elected officials being guilty of so many obvious impeachable offenses or for the public being so aware of impeachable offenses prior to an impeachment.) The Senate expelled Blount the day after he was impeached. Judge Halsted Ritter’s Senate trial took 11 days. Judge John Pickering’s trial took nine days. Judge James Peck’s trial took three days. Judge West Humphreys’ trial took one day.
Two presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.
Johnson was impeached three days after committing the offense for which he was impeached, and prior to drafting articles of impeachment. Within a week, a committee drew up charges, and 11 days after the offense, the House delivered the charges to the Senate. The trial process began the next day, and in under three months it was over.
The House began impeachment procedures for Bill Clinton on October 8, 1998, and impeached him on December 19th. The Senate trial lasted from January 14, 1999, to February 12, 1999. The whole four-month farce took less than half the time remaining to Bush and Cheney.
Of the presidential impeachment movements that did not reach impeachment, the most well-known is that against Richard Nixon. The House began impeachment on May 9, 1974, and passed the first of three articles of impeachment on July 27, 1974. Nixon resigned on August 8th. Of course there were lots of preliminary investigations, but those have already been done for Bush and Cheney.
Most impeachments have not been against presidents, but rather judges, cabinet officers, senators. These impeachments seem to take about as long as presidential impeachment do, and offer no support to the myth of long impeachments. In addition, much other business has been accomplished at the same time as these impeachments.
On July 3, 1797, evidence of an offense by Senator William Blount became known. Four days later, the House impeached him and the next day the Senate expelled him.
Evidence of an offense by Judge John Pickering became known on February 4, 1803, and the House voted to impeach him on March 2, 1803. The Senate didn’t try him for another year, but spent 9 days on it when it did so.
Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase was impeached in late 1804 (I don’t know how long the impeachment took) and 30 days later he was tried in the Senate, which completed the trial on March 1, 1805.
Judge James Peck was impeached on April 24, 1830, a month after the Judiciary Committee recommended it. The Senate took up the trial the following January and spent three days on it.
Judge West H. Humphreys was impeached on May 19, 1862. The Senate tried and convicted him in one day on June 26, 1862.
Secretary of War William W. Belknap was impeached on March 2, 1876, and the Senate trial was completed on August 1, 1876.
Judge Charles Swayne was impeached on December 14, 1904, and his trial was over on February 27, 1905.
Judge Robert W. Archbald was impeached on July 13, 1912, and the Senate trial was over on January 13, 1913.
Judge Harold Louderback resigned before his impeachment went to trial.
Judge Halsted L. Ritter was impeached on March 2, 1936, and the 11-day Senate trial ended on April 17th of the same year.
Judge Harry E. Claiborne was impeached on July 22, 1986, and the trial ended on October 9, 1986.
Then Judge and now Congressman Alcee L. Hastings, was impeached on August 3, 1988, and the Senate trial was over on October 20, 1988.
Judge Walter L. Nixon was impeached on May 10, 1989, and the Senate trial was completed on November 3, 1989.
There are nine months remaining to Bush and Cheney. If you think that is a short time, you are not a mother.
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/33115
May 1st, 2008 at 10:07 am
At this stage of the Bush presidency, impeachment is highly unlikely. It’s a long-drawn out process and totally suspends other business while, first the House considers articles and accepts or rejects by supermajority and then the Senate sits as court. The politicians in Congress know Bush will be gone in less than a year, anyway, and most of them are busy running for re-election.
The impeachment process is, in fact, so complicated because the framers intended it to be nearly impossible to remove a president, or judge, for purely political reasobs, hence the “high crimes and misdemeanors” qualifier.
If you accept my premise that the presidency as an institution is out of control, the laborious impeachment process is not the most expedient way to rein in executive power abuse.
The two most viable solutions would be either a plural presidency a la Switzerland, as discussed above, or some version of a parliamentary system in which the leader of the majority party in Congress becomes chief executive. The latter would violate the principle of separation of powers, but what the heck, it’s been violated regularly now in Babylon-by-the-Potomac for decades.
Either of those solutions would be better than continuing along with the presidency as it exists now. Again, as noted above, Bush will be back in Crawford tending the ranch come January 2009, but the abusive precedents he, and several presidents before him, set will be with us still.
With those precedents intact in a single-person executive, we could very well end up with a 21st century American Caesar in very short order.
That is the systemic problem. The current occupant is just the latest manifestation.
May 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am
You miss the point.
I don’t care how hard it is or how long it takes. As I have indicated before here, Bush and Cheney should be made to pay for their high crimes against the Constitution and humanity. It is the only way we have any chance of reestablishing trust in the world. If they go freely into that good night out of office, they leave behind a severely broken country.
In fact, since your solution is Constitutionally impractical because it would require a Constitutional Amendment that two-thirds of the states would never ratify, impeachment may be the best way to accomplish weakening the presidency. It would re-establish the power of Congress as a check and balance on executive power.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I agree with your sentiment about bringing people to justice. But the political reality is that impeachment is not going to happen in an election year in which most members of Congress are focused on getting re-elected. Your average congresscritter has the ethics and morals of an alley cat with self-preservation as goal number one, all the time, but double that in election years.
And you’re right, it would help re-establish the power of Congress as a check on executive power, but Congress has shown precious little stomach for that for decades — with a few scattered exceptions such as Watergate. Would it be right to bring impeachment articles against Bush and Cheney. Certainly, for subverting the Bill of Rights if nothing else.
Will it happen? Is there the political will or integrity in DC to do it? Sadly, the answer is no.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I ran the video recently of Conyers saying he would consider it with the right proposal. You never know.
It’s either that or put a sock in the mouth of Chris Mathews and all the rest of the talking heads. We’ve stopped paying attention.
If the New York Times, the Washington Post and any of the major networks, preferably NBC, would come out saying impeachment was necessary, it would be done tomorrow. The ratings would go through the roof at a time when people have disengaged from the presidential campaign. I doubt if a McCain-Hillary race would do anything for ratings.
In other words, duh, it would actually be in the major mainstream media’s interest to have an impeachment trial. It may not be in the interest of their controlling corporations, but it would certainly be good for the stockholders. It would probably send the dollar tumbling even more, but how low can it go against the Yen?
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:19 am
A Hillary-McCain race is at least putatively more exciting right now. Polls show Clinton winning states like Ohio and Florida vs. McCain but Obama losing them, while showing McCain capturing almost all of the states that went for Bush against Obama.
If the poll indications are truly indicative, that seems to me to translate, for the media anyway, to McCain-Clinton being very exciting — with the possibility of formerly red states going blue, and McCain-Obama being relatively less exciting, producing a predictable outcome with essentially the same red state/blue state map as 2004.
Either way, the media is going to do everything in their power to make the election seem momentous, important and thrilling. Hillary seems teflon-like when it comes to character issues, even though there are plenty of them, so they’ll play a Clinton vs. McCain campaign more like a horse race.
Obama has, it turns out, plenty of newly-discovered issues revolving around Rev. Wright, and the Republican strategists will make sure those get plenty of play. The coverage in an Obama vs. McCain campaign will boil down to character and competence to be president.
We won’t know, obviously, which would have been really more interesting since either Barack or Hillary will be on the sidelines during the general election campaign. But from the breathless and often petty Tim Russert to the moralistic Wolf Blitzer, the media pundits will one and all make it seem as enthralling as possible because they too, are in effect running for re-election with the ratings.
For a sane take on things, I’ll do what I usually do — check out Stewart and Colbert every weekday evening. They’ll make it exciting, but in a totally different way.