The Definition of Chutzpah

So now Alberto Gonzalez lied under oath in order to protect "national security". No perjury... just protecting the national interests from those pesky Congressman. If that's the case, then why are James Comey and Robert Mueller speaking openly about the meeting, and directly contradicting Gonzalez in the process?

Impeach Cheney

Impeach him for subverting the foreign policy of the United States, for attempting to push us into another war, and for encouraging American allies to start a war and drag the U.S. into it. Steve Clemens with an important article:

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

...

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President. I don't believe that the White House would take official action against Cheney for this agenda-mongering around Washington -- but I do believe that the White House must either shut Cheney and his team down and give them all garden view offices so that they can spend their days staring out their windows with not much to do or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President.

It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn't, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed.

Enemy of the State

There is a mounting case for impeachment (wiretapping, extortion of the military, Plame, torture, intentional and acknowledged violation of laws, etc.) and Balkinization piles on:

I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.

"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."

"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said. "

To me, the worst thing about this isn't that Dr. Murphy was detained, or that he was on the No-Fly in the first place. The worst thing about this is that the security guards acknowledged this was sort of profiling was systematic. That the Bush admin is making a habit of intimidating those who they consider to be political opponents. That the Bush admin is willing to sacrifice the Bill of Rights so easily for cheap revenge.

I would be shocked if Pres. Bush personally ordered this guy be placed on the No-Fly list. I would be amazed if he even knew about it. But his employees follow his policies. Obviously, there is a systemic effort to intimidate those who criticize the president, as we witnessed before in the "Quaker terrorist" incident. Add to this Bush's constant appeals to executive privilege, his doctrine that and his consistent opposition to Congressional oversight, and plenty of other abuses/assumptions of power over the past six years, and a clear pattern is emerging: Bush is an authoritarian.

And so he should be opposed. I doubt that impeachment is possible, and that's a shame. But he should be opposed. Republicans won't do it, which is maddeningly stupid. After all, the next president will likely be a Democrat, and he will abuse his power in the same way that Bush has, but the GOP won't have a damn thing to say about it. The "conservative" base, which stopped looking anything like actual conservatism a long time ago, has dug its own grave with its blind support of Bush. Rightly, voters demanded a change in the next election, and the backlash will likely last for a few more election cycles. And the GOP will likely get a taste of its own medicine. And everyone will get screwed.