Huh. I can't seem to find a second source--all of the pieces I see refer back to the Truthout story.

I suppose we'll find out soon.

One so wants it to be true.

One can't help but think about the joke about the bear - and see who'd need to 'run' faster . . .

Yeah, and the Truthout story just cites anonymous "sources close to the case".

I don't think the sources are in Fitzgerald's office: they seem to be leakproof.

I yearn for it to be true, but it sounds so good that I can't believe it.

If it is true, there'll be a party at the Woods'!

I bet president Bush will have an empty feeling inside him if the indictment goes through.

You know. In the spot where Rove stuck his hand to make the president talk and move around.

Oh, yeah, almost forgot:

Play it, Sam.

Jeralyn of TalkLeft writes: "other sites aren't reporting because they want confirmation from someone other than Leopold. I have more faith in Leopold's reporting than they do."

And another commenter quotes somebody from DailyKos saying "Just got off the phone with NY Daily News Nat'l Desk that says that THEY'RE aware of the story and are trying to verify."

Cautiously optimistic.

Also, Fitz's latest filings include some further incriminating remarks in Cheney's handwriting...

Hopefully the whole house of cards will fall apart before the government launches an attack on Iran...

This isn't an Onion-originated joke, is it? If it's not a joke, it'll make up for today's temporary weakness that made me go see Poseidon.

I'm still trying to figure out

"There's no doubt that it will be front page news if and when (an indictment) happens. But eventually it will become old news quickly."

I'm crossing my fingers. I figured this had to be very likely given that Rove was suddenly getting pushed over into a corner in the new reorganization. I hope that further good things are likely to come from an indictment. (Like further indictments, further up the chain of command - or is it "down" from Rove?)

I remind you all of Karl Rove's long history of planting false news stories; also, of getting the truth out in the words of someone easily discredited. Remember Fortunate Son?

We are ruled by an organized crime syndicate. They're on the ropes, but this isn't over.

Later than the post mentioned above, Jeralyn called Rove's lawyer (Luskin) to try to confirm and got a brushoff with a rather odd excuse: it was 10:00pm (in DC), far too late to be calling anyone.

"I remind you all of Karl Rove's long history of planting false news stories; also, of getting the truth out in the words of someone easily discredited. Remember Fortunate Son?"

Yes but these were accusations, this is an indictment. Although an indictment is just an accusation, in the public's mind an indictment is a serious accusation - often in the public's mind an indictment is conviction. So it does not seem reasonable to future-proof against indictment by leaking that there is an indictment, because the issue of whether there is or is not an indictment cannot be clouded.

I wonder if you could argue that Rove shouldn't get bail, because he has a history of intimidating witnesses.

Or do you mean that the indictments will be less than is rumoured thus looking good for Rove? In that case I would have expected quite a longer buildup of how many indictments he would be facing, if indeed he has been indicted.

Serge, did Poseidon suck as much as I suspect? (The first movie, which I saw in a theater with my mother and sister, was not a work of art but a emotion-jerker, entertaining trash.) I cannot imagine a remake can improve it.

Watergate 2.0!

(I'm sorry, but I had to do it...)

More seriously, as a foreigner, how important would this be? Is this like Gordon Brown being indicted, or a backbencher being given a traffic ticket, or somewhere in the middle?

Assuming he gets time, I'm wondering how long he'll serve. I mean we all know that, unless Bush is impeached in the meantime, he'll be pardoned when Dubya leaves office, along with Scooter Libby, Duke Cunningham, and any others of this bunch of crooks and scumbags currently running your country who've been unlucky enough to have had to face the music. Can he use the appeals process to put things off 'til then?

Plenty of time to get excited later. If, just to pick one of many possibilities, Rove is indicted and Bush doesn't just move to dismiss the case because Rove is crucial to national security.

Right, a man who is (probably) indicted for a cover-up of who revealed classified information is vital to national security.

Can Bush afford to be that blatant?

Considering the run-up to our elections in the UK, and the sudden Cabinet reshuffle, I would expect the basic strategy to be delaying any trial until after the looming US elections. But there is a significant difference in the class of people being elected. A cover-up/delay strategy could be seen by some as harming their chances of re-election.

Still, I think it's wait and see time.

"Can Bush afford to be that blatant?"

Well, either he knows he'll never get impeached and so it doesn't matter what he does, or he knows he's at the end of the line and so ditto. I would think it's unlikely that he's in any doubt as to what's going to happen, either way.

Of course the only way Bush could possibly be impeached is if the Democrats win the House by a wide margin in 2006. It's possible they'll take the House, but if they do it's unlikely it will be by a wide margin. It's even less likely the Democrats will take the Senate and so the probability of his conviction on impeachment charges is even more remote.

Even if the Democrats take the House by a wide margin, I am (more and more) in favor of letting him proceed to the end of his term without impeachment.

Why? Because they know the American people don't want to start in on an impeachment mess if There's A Real War On. I think pending impeachment proceedings would spur these *ssh*l*s to come up with even more horrors to compel the nation to Pull Together.

If the Democrats take the House, investigate the hell out of these corrupt bastards, take your time, get it right, for history's sake at least. With any luck, ongoing investigations will put pause to the raping and pillaging, and by the time impeachment proceedings become appropriate, Bush'll be close enough to the end of his term to not make it worthwhile.

If we can clear the Republicans out of the House and thereby get *some* sort of oversight process going again, I think we're better off hanging on by our fingertips instead of trying to drive the guy out.

Unless of course the impeachment charges are so egregious and so *self-evidently* nonpartisan that a large majority of the American people *demand* his impeachment. In which case, GO FOR IT.

I know it sounds like I'm in favor of rewarding really bad behavior here, but I think sometimes it's better to be smart than right. If we can get some sort of oversight as a result of the mid-terms, I say we let these maniacs find their way out the door themselves.

But maybe that's just the result of having to deal with genuinely crazy people on subway cars. Often it's best to just wait until the train pulls into the station, the doors open, and the lunatics wander out on their own.

Michael --

You know that bunch of big databases, currently tracking at least every phone call anyone in the US makes, their medical histories, employment status, blog postings, and so on, for the NSA?

That's the brainchild of -- among others -- Admiral Poindexter, whom Bush pere pardoned for (among other things) running death squads.

There's nowhere for these guys to go; they're not going to go away. No amount of political defeat registers, or even starts to slow them down. They're not crazy or powerless or (in terms of their actual, fundamentally criminal, objectives) incompetent.

Y'all need the whole lot behind bars for the rest of their natural lives if you want to actually start to fix the mess.

Since, as Al Gore has been pointing out, we've got maybe ten years before the irreversible climate change slide starts, going "oh well, it will sort itself out" isn't entirely prudent as a position.

The problem -- or this particular problem, the one that could get us all killed -- started when the American people went along with The Bush Program back in 2000.

The real problem isn't Poindexter or Bush pere or Bush fils. The real problem is that the American people put up with them. They allow them.

I have no problem with sending the bastards to jail. I just don't want to give them an excuse to kill a bunch more people at the moment. I'd love to see them get everything they deserve. I advocate it. I just don't want them to kill me before we have a chance to nail them.

Michael --

Strategic defensive = you're going to lose. (Strategic defensive is what you do only so long as you must, in order to get your logistics established to pursue the strategic offensive somewhere.)

They're already doing their best to kill all of you, anyway; whether that's nuclear war in the Middle East, galloping climate change, or incompetent response to a pandemic, how they came to die is of little interest to the dead.

You're also taking a hopeful view of the probable behavior of a bunch of crazy people; this isn't prudent or sensible. If Rumsfeld and Bush tell the US Air Force to nuke somebody, that somebody gets nuked. Since there are credible reports that Rummy's bugfuck nuts, many stops past barking, and that Bush is profoundly detached from any factual information flow, I don't begin to consider the idea that the foreign adventurers are purely responses to domestic political pressures credible. Multi-purposed to that effect, certainly, but the Cheny-Rumsfeld objective in Iraq was and remains independent of domestic policy concerns.

Same with Iran; same with the entire concept of the Imperial Presidency.

Trying not to startle them isn't going to make them act more rationally.

Michael, it pains me to point out that a key part of the problem is that the American people, or at least the voters, did not buy into the Bush program in 2000. In any other country in the world an election like that would have brought calls for UN observers and the Carter Center to be involved . . . and in fact there were such calls around here as well. 2004 wasn't whole bunches better.

And much as I would enjoy the process, I suggest that impeaching Bush would be getting things in the wrong order. You have to impeach Cheyney first or there really hasn't been any change at all.

It might be easier and quicker just to win in 2008.

Yes, it did suck, Paula. Big time. True, 34 years after the original, the women aren't clad in hot pants anymore so that's an improvement. But having them cling to each other while the men go do the dangerous work...

Well, I'm just going to repeat and concentrate my original point: talking about impeaching Bush, let alone convicting him of the impeachment charges, is stupid unless the Democrats take control of both houses in 2006. The Republican lap-dogs in Congress aren't going to do it. And if we just get the House, it's still stupid to talk about it because impeachment itself is useless -- at least in terms of the dangers we are talking about -- unless you get the conviction too. The point is to get them out of power as safely and as efficiently as possible.

Now... I'm going to excuse myself from this discussion because I fear what's coming next, which is: the prediction that Bush & Co. will refuse to hold an election in 2008 or something along those lines and It's All Over. Like, you know, if that's the case, impeachment is really going to do something, all right.

I like this place a lot, but sometimes I really can't take some of the hopelessness, or, sorry, "steely-eyed realism" of some of the commenters. Maybe the worst is true. Maybe it's all over. In which case, I'd prefer to kill myself quietly, with some dignity, rather than, you know, discuss to death the reasonableness of my doing so.

I'm sorry. I apologize. I just get crabby sometimes. I'll go outside and play in the street for a while.

Michael --

Just because you can't do something is no reason not to make the other fellow explain why they won't when they could.

Making the Republican members of Congress explain, over and over again, why lying about a blowjob is an impeachable offense -- preferably with lots of recorded quotes from the day -- and lying about a war, a couple big stinking piles of corpses, and multiple felonies, isn't, strikes me as a really good strategy.

That's a real question, it's an important question, it has no good answers, and it'd do the public debate a ton of good to have that one hammered on.

There is no safe way to remove this gang from power; they don't want to go, they're crazy, and they have no respect for the rule of law or the traditions of American democracy. Being non-confrontational about it isn't going to help.

Graydon, we should also make some of the nominal Democrats explain that too. Feinstein, after all, was the one who introduced that impeachment resolution.

Graydon, you're kidding, right? Ignoring things doesn't make them go away?

I guess that's why the bullies in school never backed off. Imagine all those teachers and elders and other girls being wrong! Why didn't they ever tell me to carry sharp, pointed, or heavy objects and inflict controlled harm on your harrassers, and make them realize that if they don't stop they will suffer for it, even if the nominal authorities won't do anything about it - I had to figure that out for myself. [/snark]

That the mentality of most of the "good guys in charge" here is that of willfuly-blind high school guidance counselors and jr high teachers enabling the bully cliques for fear of causing unpleasantness they don't know how or aren't willing to suffer dealing with...is both obvious, and not inspiring of confidence in ultimate victory. I need to send John Conyers another "thank you" message, on the theory that those who are willing to step out and get their knuckles bruised should have their morale boosted as much as possible.

Graydon, you're kidding, right? Ignoring things doesn't make them go away?

I was going to do that typical online thing of bowing out of the discussion, but still following it, but now I see I can't even do that. I can't read mischaracterizations like that and not lose my temper. So I'll wait until some other thread starts or something before reading Making Light again.

Michael, there are times when good outcomes are genuinely not available. That was the fate of the many decent German people in 1938, for instance.

Now for myself, because I see how badly wrong I got things in 2000, I'm not trusting my best assessment entirely. I think we're screwed. But because I may be wrong again, I'm doing what I can to help get electoral victories for people other than the lunatics of the war party. (Which means opposing and trying to replace some Democrats as well as most high-ranking Republicans.) I'm donating, I'll be campaigning, doing my stuff, so that if there's room for the system to work, it won't fail because I didn't do my part. I'm also looking for openings to act on the things that I think will keep the system from working, and will jump on them when I find them.

But it is my best evaluation that we passed the actual point of viable change in 2000, with a confirmation of the new order's ability to protect itself in 2004. I'd like to be wrong about this, but I still don't see any general engagement with the fact of election rigging, which is crucial to this evaluation. Media culture still requires dismissing the very idea of successful planning to subvert fair elections as conspiracy thinking - it simply can't enter the discourse. But it's not like the evidence for either their planning or their execution of election theft is any different from the evidence for war mismanagement, flood response mismanagement, Medicare mismanagement, or anything else they've done badly and wrongly.

Looking at some of the reporting of US politics, it sometimes seems difficult to distinguiish between Republicans and Democrats. I think that if you were making up a little list, party affiliation would be one of the lesser criteria.

Politics in the England of 1605 didn't really have the idea of a Party, but arranging to store firewood in a Congressional cellar doesn't seem all that indiscriminate.

So what has changed? Why the failure of the Democratic Party to maintain a clear difference?

What's the real political poison, and who's been administering it?

Dave: are you familiar with the funding restrictions on British elections? Like, MPs who over-spend or who fail to declare their spending do the perp walk all the way to prison?

IIRC, there's no cap on campaign spending in the USA. (There are regulations on how money is raised and how it's spent, but no absolute cap on how much you can spend.)

The result is that elections become an arms race where the weapon is advertising, and the outcome is that a campaign to win a single congressional seat costs more than an entire British national parliamentary election.

If you want to get elected to national office, you have to raise great gobs of money. Unbelievable amounts of money. Money in eye-bulging quantities that makes our scandal over dosh-for-honours look laughable.

And you have to ask what the real political poison is ...?

A friend sent it to me yesterday; so far, I've not seen a single reference in the MSM. The thought of W without his brain is so wonderful that I've had to pinch myself to make sure that I'm not dreaming.

Anyone else interested in a Constitutional Amendment to bar Presidents from pardoning their own political appointees for their actions while on the job?

Impeach Bush? Not going to happen,Please do not even think such things....Pres Cheney. I rest my case.

MaryR: if you're serious, which I realize you may not be -- right now I'm more interested in electing people who will respect and follow the present version of the Constitution than in making it longer. Bush pardoning Rove, should Rove actually get convicted, is not something I spend a whole lot of time worrying about. How to elect people who will actually follow the law and deal with some of the country's serious problems, is.

Serious problems, in no particular order, would include but not be limited to: health care, the absolute f------ mess we have made of our immigration policy, energy (i.e. global warming), the deficit, the stunning, growing imbalance between rich people and poor people, the absolute f------ mess we have made of our tax code, relationships with our global allies (poor), that insane destructive policy called "the war on drugs," the absolute f------ mess we have made of our system of justice... And so on.

Of course, I'd be happy to see Rove in jail. But I also don't believe in the Evil Genius theory of history. Yes, Rove is a Bad Man, but neither he nor Bush nor Rumsfeld nor Cheney would have any power without the generous assistance of thousands and thousands of other people who support them, send them money, vote for them, refuse to criticize them, and believe their lies. Bruce, do you really believe, looking at Bush's current poll numbers, that there is no hope for 2006 or 2008? My fear is not that Bushco will steal the election but that they will win it because the Democrats remain clueless...

Fitzgerald has his guns sighted on Cheney. That's clear from the response he filed in Libby on Friday.

But be very cautious about the Leopold article. It's not confirmed by anyone, and there are internal inconsistencies with established legal practice.

Agree with Lizzy L. Amending the Constitution would take too long anyway, seeing that it needs two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress, which it would not get if it was in any way perceived to be liberal or implicitly anti-Bush (two-thirds of state legislatures is the alternative).

Bush did say, back in 2001 in a press conference (when questioned about Clinton's pardons) "should I decide to grant pardons, I will do so in a fair way. I'll have the highest of high standards." Quite so.

Lizzy, what I believe is that poll numbers don't matter when the party has multiple ways of getting the election results it wants, starting with pushing people off the voting rolls, then proceeding to tampering with the vote tallying, and finally getting supportive judges to rule in their favor regardless of merit. And they will not be challenged effectively on any of that.

One of the norms in election supervision around the world, for instance, is that when well-conducted exit polls differ more than a few percentage points from the declared tally, that's reason for scrutiny and perhaps a recount. The 2004 election here was well outside that margin. But that standard was never invoked in well-distributed discourse here because...we're special or something. I dunno, maybe the Cheney administrationa ctually is blackmailing enough journalists to get their way. Or something. The point is that a simple, clear, relevant standard was never raised at all, let alone anyone in a position of authority trying to apply it.

Here's one hypothetical spin for 2006 and 2008:

"Well, the president's ratings have been very low, but after all, this isn't a very wide victory, and we know that the public thinks the Democrats are unreliable on {insert issues here}. Once again, the Democrats just couldn't quite draw support away."

This after, of course, brutal and factually bogus savaging of Democratic initiatives on anything at all, along with echoing repetition of Republican lies on prominent Democratic candidates. That drags the gap in ratings down to maybe 20 points or so, and the rest is simply accepted by the media and the Democratic leadership, and on we go.

Maybe not just like that. But something like that is what I expect to see, in the absence of any serious effort at verifiable voting.

I really don't see why a Democratic House shouldn't impeach W. Bush, even if the Senate does not convict him. It provides a framework for a thorough investigation of the seamy side of the administration and the opportunity to publicize the results of that investigation. It's also politically effective to be be seen trying to do the "right" thing, even if one isn't victorious, so it's good for 2008, even if it doesn't lead to conviction.

I don't understand the reasoning here--why not impeach the bastard?

PJ, it was Russ Feingold who authored the impeachment resolution, not Dianne Feinstein.

Some of the top of my head reasons why not to impeach:
1)investigations are possible without it;
2)it looks too much like payback for Clinton;
3)it wastes immense amount of time and MONEY that could actually be spent dealing with real problems.

Going around the net:

Remember to give Mom a call this weekend . . .

. . . the NSA needs to calibrate its systems.

I've never seen Michael Weholt be thoughtless, this round included.

"When in tbe course of human events it becomes necessary..."

"We, the people of the United States of America, in order to..."

http://www.lincolnminutemen.org/history/historical_modern.html

"...roughly 4,500 Minute Men blazed away at the British column for six hours as the Redcoats made their twenty-mile retreat from Concord back to Boston. Each Minute Man carried perhaps 20-24 cartridges. Yet only 275 musket balls from all these Minute Men hit British soldiers.

"The main strength of Minute Man companies was their sheer numbers and their startling ability to assemble forces on short notice. To put this in perspective, the total British forces in Boston in 1775 numbered 3,000 men, and the entire British army in North America, from Quebec to the Florida border totaled only 8,000 soldiers. When Massachusetts rose up in anger on April 19th, the total militia forces in the colony numbered some 14,000 men. In just the towns immediately surrounding Lexington and Concord, the militias contained 6,000 members..."

I think that some of the muskets used April 1776 might still be extant and some of the descendants of their users practice shooting with them...

Feingold authored a censure resolution. There's been no resolution of impeachment put forth.

Article 2 of the five articles of impeachment against Nixon had to do with wiretapping. The distinction then was that his w/t had nothing to do with national security, and you can be sure that would be the claim by the Bushies. Nonetheless, there's precedent of a sort.

I got wind of this from the King of Zembla yesterday. I've got all appendages crossed that it might be for real. What, will we find out Monday?

I had in mind the impeachment of Clinton wrt Feinstein. Not that she's much of a Democrat when it isn't to her advantage; I'm hoping she'll have competition in whatever primary she appears in next (sample ballot not having appeared in mailbox yet).

No, we don't need to impeach Shrub. Cheney, yes. Rove, yes. Shrub is pretty useless without them telling him what to do next, although not harmless even then, given his messiah complex. I keep hoping we can get the lot of them out before fall.

Michael Weholt writes:

"Of course the only way Bush could possibly be impeached is if the Democrats win the House by a wide margin in 2006."

Not quite true. The House is not the only thing that can bring an impeachment call against the president.

It turns out there are various methods of setting a federal impeachment in motion: 1) By charges made on the floor by a member of the House; 2) By charges preferred by a memorial filed by a House member; 3) By charges contained in a Resolution introduced by a House member; 4) By a message from the President; 5) By charges transmitted by a State legislature, or a grand jury; 6) By facts developed and reported by an investigating committee of the House. (You can find the rules in question, here, it's on page three of the PDF.)

In other words, it's not just members of the House than can introduce motions of impeachment. So various state legislators have introduced impeachment proceedings against Bush in their own state legislatures. Illinois has, California has, Vermont's going to, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Louisiana just might want to. Call it a hunch.

Now, here's the part that's interesting, and that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else: There is one other landmine that Bush has no control over, one other avenue to impeachment-- Patrick Fitzgerald and his federal grand jury, currently investigating the Plame/CIA leak case.

Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that either Cheney or Bush lied under oath, or worked to conceal or hide facts of the case. That's perjury and/or obstruction of justice. If Fitzgerald can make the case, he can not only indict them for perjury, he can start impeachment proceedings against them immediately. He even has precedent to point to with the Clinton impeachment, which was brought for perjury and obstruction of justice in a civil suit. Perjury in a criminal case could be much worse.

As always, I'm not a lawyer-- but this seems pretty solid to me. I defer to others with more legal experience to tell me if I'm wrong. But I think Fitz could get Bush and Cheney impeached, if the facts lean that way. And if that's true, the Administration could be in for a world of hurt.

Bruce Baugh writes:

"But it's not like the evidence for either their planning or their execution of election theft is any different from the evidence for war mismanagement, flood response mismanagement, Medicare mismanagement, or anything else they've done badly and wrongly."

I suspect the biggest reason people have trouble believing in election theft nowadays is that it's the only thing the Bush crew has been able to pull off with any degree of competency.

Y'know, there is hardly a conspiracy theory left that hasn't turned into a conspiracy fact.

Paula, while I take your point about citizens rising up against their government, you'll forgive me if I don't agree that the rule of law in this country has degenerated to the point where civil war looks attractive, or even reasonable.

(Plus, despite the fact that I live only a few miles away from Bunker Hill, the example set by my antecedents in resisting the British involves practicing satyagraha and getting shot at.)

I will cling to this hope as long as I can. I'm used to disappointment, but a few hours of joy won't hurt me.

Still, this could be Rove's classic "turd in the punchbowl."

As for impeaching Bush...Get. Cheney. First.

Remember this: If the Dems take both houses (unlikely, OK, but work with me), and Cheney gets kicked in some fashion, the Senate doesn't have to confirm Bush's nominee for Veep. (This requires the Democrats having at least one testis or ovary apiece, which is also unlikely.) Then if the House impeaches Bush, and the Senate convicts him and removes him from office, Nancy Pelosi becomes President (assuming she becomes Speaker when the Dems take the House, which seems likely).

Worse things have happened.

This process could not begin until 2007 at the earliest, of course. And the likelihood of its being completed quickly is even lower than that of the rest of my scenario. So Pelosi would be President for a few months at most, and then the 2008 elections would happen.

*sigh* Well, I can dream, can't I?

Michael, you wrote -

I know it sounds like I'm in favor of rewarding really bad behavior here, but I think sometimes it's better to be smart than right. If we can get some sort of oversight as a result of the mid-terms, I say we let these maniacs find their way out the door themselves.

But maybe that's just the result of having to deal with genuinely crazy people on subway cars. Often it's best to just wait until the train pulls into the station, the doors open, and the lunatics wander out on their own.

"Wait for the crazy people to get out of the train" is different from "ignoring problem until it goes away" how? Even if it's motivated by "because I don't want to get beat up/killed by crazy person, so I'll let them hurt me a little until they go away in the hopes that it will still be less than what they could do if I provoked them by resisting, and in the hopes that they will go away," it doesn't change the essence of it.

And while that's a legitimate judgment for an individual to make for personal safety, it isn't a legitimate judgment for a society to make about its so-called guardians - and still less for the other guardians charged with the specific duty which they have accepted: a cop on the subway can't just look the other way and hunker down and not make eye-contact if a dangerously-crazy person is menacing the other passengers, which is the position that the Democrats and such non-koolaid drinking Republicans as remain are in.

If their attitude is, we should all just duck and hum until 2008, and hope that they don't declare martial law or nuke somebody in the meantime, and they're validated in this by the passivity of the public - the public pushing with angry telegrams by the bushel was what made the somewhat-more-ethical Republicans turn against Nixon after all - then they're not doing their job, and neither are we, and the Republic is over.

Graydon is absolutely right. And some of us may ultimately have to get shot, to get shed of them, although resolute application of legal means and public pressure may OTOH suffice to have the helicopters leaving the roof of the White House, stuffed with loot. But "Let's huddle down all tharn and pray General Woundwort retires" is not compatible with the Constitution. (And these would-be Woundworts are not going even to be able to protect us from the White Blindness let alone Man competently...)

Linkmeister, you are right, of course. PJ, so are you. Thank you for the corrections.

However, I stand by my original assertion that impeachment would waste time and money that we don't have. Also, it seems to me that a way needs to be found for the people in this country to come together -- perhaps a hopeless task, but it's not in my nature to be hopeless. (Someone needs to do what Bush did NOT do on September 12th.) Unless impeaching George Bush would actually unify the country in some way, it's hard for me to see the point of it.

On the other hand, if Fitz can do it... it's not like I don't want that pony.

Impeaching Nixon unified the country. He only got one vote from the entire House.

Not that today's foaming wingnuts would be so honest.

Somehow, I don't think that the Rs built up this whole "Imperial Presidency" thing in order to hand it over to Hillary.

They've still got Diebold.

Xopher, I like that scenario.

The big difference between W and Nixon is that the latter, finally, outraged even his strongest supporters. The former, on the other hand, can do no wrong in the eyes of a hard core of Republican elected officials and pundits.

What has amazed me is how quickly conservatives who question Bush become defined, by their fellow conservatives, as 'liberals'. Bob Barr is a case in point.

No big deal, Lizzy. I don't want to start off (if we win the House) with articles of impeachment. I want investigative hearings about intelligence misuse in the pre-Iraq period, I want hearings about war-profiteering, I want hearings about contract administration in Iraq, and as long as I'm wanting things, I want a unicorn (ponies' value has been deflated by the number of desires expressed for them).

And I want all that testimony under oath.

Linkmeister, me too want all that stuff.Fragano, Glenn Greenwald has written some spectacular posts on that "you don't support George W. Bush any more so you must be a liberal" phenomenon.

The Diebold thing is scary, but it seems to me that we the people on the state level actually have some power here. A number of state governments are refusing to certify the Diebold machines, and some have even re-visited already granted certifications and taken them away. Back to paper ballots...

Schmuck makes much of being "Command-in-Chief" and playing [tin-plated dictator] Tin Soldier.

There are certain protocols involved in being a military commander, however. One of them is responsiblity and accepting the responsiblity for what one's subordinates do and what happens on one's watch...

Schmuck has consistently refused to take almost any responsibility for less than wonderful things that have happened during his incumbency. He constantly plays pin the blame on the donkey, pin the blame on the press, pin the blame on Saddam Hussein, pin the blame on the UN, pin the blame on the godless, pin the blame on anybody but his own spoiled brat self and his spoiled brat robber baron buddies and syncophants... and the press plays syncophant to him.

But getting back to Gag Order Gorge/Blunderbush/Head Environmental Rapist/Willing Stoolie/Apocalyptic Asshole/etc., under his misadministration, there have been the Sago mine disaster caused by the his regime obliterating mine safety enforcement activities, 9/11 which was the result of complete and utter disregard and lack of concern about attacks on the USA that Al Qaeda had announced it would be carrying out, the dotcom economic crash, the invasion of Iraq using lies as rationale, Plamegate and his lies about firing anyone involved in outing Valerie Wilson and the formerly secret operations she had overseen, the hypocrisy regarding getting Osama bin Laden dead or alive, the US policies approving torture and employing torture of prisoners, the abrogation of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, the criminal negligent and negligent homicide of so many people in New Orleans, and on and on and on.

His tenure has been marked by death and disaster, incompetence, corruption--the head of White House procurement taken away in handcuffs, and other major figures in Schmuck's misadmistration arrested for corruption and/or removed from office for criminal activity or allegation of them (Cheney's Chief of Staff, for example, and the recent case of the fellow with the child porn, and I forget who else...).

Someone who presides over all these messes, who appointed the likes of Mike Brown to FEMA when he lacked any reasonable qualifications nad background for any such position, appointing a mining industry lobbyist to head the Minings Safety federal organization, putting in a veterinarian! to be the person in the federal government overseeing women's health in the country, putting a totaly quack in as surgeon general whose prescription for women with menstrual cramps is for women to pray to God for relief, anyone who would promote a religious bigot like Lt General Boykin instead of cashier him, and anyone who would allow the military academies to turn into Evangelical missionary agencies.... anyone who would remove federal wetlands protections for wetlands from areas that don't have water 365 days a year (so much for seasonally running streams, vernal pools, and rivers which due to massive development and land mismanagement, once ran 365 days a year but not more...), who would from one side of his mouth extol veterans and the militray and with the other cut funding and healthcare and require newly disabled vets made permanently disabled in Iraq, payback their enlistment bonus for failing to serve out the full term of enlistment, should at a minimum be run out of office along with the people who promoted all those offensives!

Lack of awareness is not an acceptable excuse, if he didn't know and approve of those things, he should have been clued in enough to find out and stop them... That is, either he is willingly doing and serving evil, or he is so arrogant/incompetent/feckless that he doesn't notice or care and that is no less culpable, irresponsible, and deserving of expulsion and removal from office, for malfeasance and incompetence and gross reckless negligence.

And the same all apply to Cheney.

A couple of legal and/or historical points.

Glenn, there is a substantial legal argument that, under the Constitution, a sitting president simply can not be indicted -- he/she must first be impeached and convicted. (One of the issues is separation of powers.) IIRC, Hamilton wrote about these issues in Federalist 69 and 77, and the special prosecutors in the Nixon case did not choose to indict him for this and other reasons.

Scorpio, Nixon was never impeached -- the House Judiciary Committee did vote out three articles of impeachment, which never reached the floor of the House as Nixon resigned first. The key factor in causing that resignation was that 2/3 of the Senate clearly would vote to convict. My memory of those times indicates that while the House hearings were a good and necessary process (in fact, from time to time heroic), the one thing they did not do was bring the country closer together. The only time that I have seen this country more split apart than those years, is now.

Claude, I didn't say anything about Fitzgerald indicting, I said that Fitzgerald has the power to start impeachment against Bush and Cheney directly, no need for the House to get involved. (And wouldn't that be a wonderful thing. For one thing, it'd make the charge of political motivation a lot harder to support.)

From there, the House of Representatives would have to pass Fitzgerald's "articles of impeachment" by a simple majority.

Next, the Senate tries the accused. In the case of the impeachment of a President, the Chief Justice of the United States presides over the proceedings. Otherwise, the Vice President, in his capacity of President of the Senate, or the President pro tempore of the Senate presides. This would include the impeachment of the Vice President him- or herself. And wouldn't that be fun to watch as well, Cheney trying to protect himself under the C-Span cameras...

Bruce, I've been thinking for a long time that the current adminstration goes in for blackmail, though I'd been assuming it was used to maintain Republican party discipline. Assuming that blackmail is pervasive (at this point, the likely targets include members of both parties + journalists), is there any hope other than someone who's being blackmailed going public about it?

Paula, I agree with the rest of your list of indictments, but how was the dotcom bust Bush's fault?

I'll add the drug plans to the list--I can't see that wreckage as doing anything other than killing people, and I can't see anyone involved being stupid enough to not know it. It's as though _Atlas Shrugged_ had been written by a progressive.

My feel-good fantasy is that the current adminstration isn't blackmailing everyone who's tweaking the voting machines, and enough of the tweakers have been comprehensively pissed off and/or hurt by the current administration that we get a sufficiently honest election.

The Nixon resignation (not impeachment) certainly did not bring the country together. Quite a large segment of public opinion felt he had been set up or even framed, or that he was just doing his duty. (Weirdly, the bad language on the tapes had more to do with the defection of many loyal supporters than did any wrongdoing.) Some of the right-wing behavior now in support of Bush seems like it has an element of revenge for betraying Nixon to it.

As I recall it, the situation was far worse then. Political riots, families literally disowning each other, people getting fired for not supporting one side or the other strongly enough. Nixon was accused of the same sorts of heinous intentions with regards to constitutional protections, disregard of election results, etc, but in retrospect there was a lot more panic than there was evidence. He certainly disregarded lots of laws and Constitutional protections, but it's a long way from thinking you're above the law while you're Commander in Chief to thinking that you're entitled to evade the law to hold onto the presidency.

No confirmation yet of the Truthout.org news about Rove. Not on Salon.com anyway. Damn.

Bruce, so do I. I like unicorns too. *sigh*

bonniers, Nixon never openly declared he was entitled to evade the law. I think declaring yourself above the law, or that "the king can do no wrong," is far, far worse than just doing some behind-the-scenes sneakery.

Q: What's the difference between Bush and Satan?
A: Satan knows his power is limited.

bellatrys: "Wait for the crazy people to get out of the train" is different from "ignoring problem until it goes away" how?

Just before you quoted what you quoted, I wrote:

If the Democrats take the House, investigate the hell out of these corrupt bastards, take your time, get it right, for history's sake at least. With any luck, ongoing investigations will put pause to the raping and pillaging, and by the time impeachment proceedings become appropriate, Bush'll be close enough to the end of his term to not make it worthwhile.

If we can clear the Republicans out of the House and thereby get *some* sort of oversight process going again, I think we're better off hanging on by our fingertips instead of trying to drive the guy out.

Unless of course the impeachment charges are so egregious and so *self-evidently* nonpartisan that a large majority of the American people *demand* his impeachment. In which case, GO FOR IT.

Does that sound like "ignoring the problem" to you?

It doesn't matter that the Republicans misused the impeachment process on Clinton. People knew what that was all about and it generally disgusted the country. Impeachment, believe me, should be an act of absolute last resort, despite what maniac Republicans think, and while many of us might feel that Bush & Co. are worthy of resorting to our last option, they are not.

All we need, seriously, is at least one Democratically controlled house of Congress. That will allow the system to work the way it's supposed to work. It seems to me that anybody who doesn't believe that really needs to admit they have completely lost faith in the Constitution and move on from there.

People certainly have a right to completely lose faith in the Constitution. It's just that I don't happen to have lost mine. I think Bush & Co. are crazy and willing to do a lot of stuff to help themselves to the country's wealth, and willing to do a lot of stuff to hang on to power.

At the same time, however, I don't think not impeaching Bush is ignoring the problem. I think it would be a rash, unnecessary, and possibly dangerous act. We don't need to do it, assuming we get at least one house of Congress -- which ought to be the focus of our efforts at the moment -- and so why expose ourselves to the danger?

I know some of you think it is hopeless. I do not. I believe that if we work to take back at least one house and thereby restore some of the checks and balances built into the system, then things will be if not fine, then at least recoverable. Impeachment only makes the recovery more difficult.

Let him be the President Who Lives In Infamy. He's earned it. Get an indictment after he's left office if you can figure a way to do it and want to spend your time and energy on it. In the meantime, let's fix things by getting the system back on track.

And, you know, if the Democrats don't manage to get one house, then we can talk again about what to do, though impeachment will obviously be completely out of the question then.

Xopher: True, he didn't state anything like that in public, and W has. I'm not trying to say the two cases are identical. Only that it was way bad before, and our very strong system survived the shock of years of antiwar turmoil, cold war, and disarray. Many people really didn't think it would be able to absorb the pressure of first a VP and then a president going down like that.

The whole thing has an aura of deja vu about it for me. How do you spell Vietnam? I-R-A-Q.

bonniers, Nixon never openly declared he was entitled to evade the law..... Xopher

When the President does it, that means that it's not illegal.
Richard M. Nixon

See e.g.: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005_12_11_digbysblog_archive.html

But, of course, it wasn't really John Yoo's theory at all; it was Dick Cheney's muse, Richard Nixon who said, "when the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

This was not some off the cuff statement. It was based upon a serious constitutional theory --- that the congress or the judiciary (and by inference the laws they promulgate and interpret) have no authority over an equal branch of government. The president, in the pursuit of his duties as president, is not subject to the laws. Citizens can offer their judgment of his performance every four years at the ballot box.

After the election, George W. Bush said this:

The Post: ...Why hasn't anyone been held accountable, either through firings or demotions, for what some people see as mistakes or misjudgments?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election.

He, like Nixon, believes that the president has only one "accountability moment" while he is president. His re-election. Beyond that, he has been given a blank check. And that includes breaking the law since if the president does it, it's not illegal, the president being the executive branch which is not subject to any other branch of govenrment.

John Yoo, the former deputy attorney general who wrote many of the opinion undergirding these findings (on torture as well as spying) explains that the congress has no right to abridge the president's warmaking powers. Its only constitutional remedy to a war with which they disagree is to deny funding; they can leave the troops on the field with no food or bullets.

I suspect that there are many more of these instances out there in which the administration has simply ignored the law. They believe that the constitution explicitly authorizes them to do so.

There is of course a strong legal tradition that the King be subject to the law that made him king.

Notice that, although not widely recognized in 2005 when the above was posted on Hullabaloo, the last count I heard was 750 more or less findings that the President would not be bound - call it ignoring if you will or call it not ignoring but evading.

Clark -- thanks for that information and citation. I guess I shouldn't have been so quick to blame my failing memory.

Clark: I will now blame my failing memory! I stand corrected.

But I still think Bush is much, much worse than Nixon. Nixon wasn't a traitor, which is my opinion of Bush (chiefly because of his administration's revenge-outing of an undercover CIA agent, which probably got or will get many of her associates killed).

Nixon got off scott-free, with even his pension intact, which I objected to at the time but which was probably good for the country. Dubya belongs in prison for the rest of his worthless life.

Shrub is also an oath-breaker: he swore to faithfully execute the laws and to preserve and defend the Constitution. Twice. (With his hand on the Bible he claims to believe in, and if he had his fingers crossed to make it 'not take', someone needs to warm up his rear end to learn him.)

Michael Weholt: Get an indictment after he's left office
if you can figure a way to do it and want to spend
your time and energy on it.

Impeachment might be desirable
to prevent him from pardoning everyone of interest
before he leaves office.

I think there should be investigations of 'war-profiteering',
with an eye towards getting some of the money back,
to offset the debt which has been run up.

P J Evans: this is why I hate him even more than I hate bin Laden (who murdered friends of mine). He's Iago; he's Benedict Arnold; he's Brutus.

May they live in regret and devoid of all joy
Who swear to protect what they plan to destroy.

I hope this isn't too off-topic. I just read that the Feds are using all that phone data to intimidate journalists and find leaks. I am really, really upset about this. It won't be long and they'll be using all those Army National Guard troops being deployed along Mexico's border to keep us IN.

ABC NEWS calls being analyzed by gov't.

But I still think Bush is much, much worse than Nixon. Nixon wasn't a traitor, which is my opinion of Bush (chiefly because of his administration's revenge-outing of an undercover CIA agent, which probably got or will get many of her associates killed).

Xopher -- I don't disagree with you there. But the overall situation, though serious, doesn't seem quite as dire as some people like to think. When Nixon left office, we'd lost the Vietnam war and gone through years of riots, anti-everything demonstrations, and deficits brought on by trying to have a guns-and-butter economy. Then the oil embargo hit. People honestly weren't sure if the country could survive. But we did. We'll survive this too.

Lizzy, I impeachment proceedings against W. Bush could dispense a kind of justice and I think it's important for the Democrats to attempt to do so, if they can, to show the public and the world that we are done with the radical right's abuses. I don't think that would be a waste at all.

Jason Leopold at Truthout is standing by his reporting, if anyone wondered. He says he's got five sources, and he further says:

This is a White House that has lied and lied and lied. And yet the first question that people ask is “why would Rove’s spokesman lie?” Because they can, because they do, and because they have. This is an administration that has attacked and discredited their detractors. I am amazed that not a single reporter would actually do any real investigative work and get to the bottom of this story. Surely, their must be another intrepid reporter out there that has sources beyond a spokesman.

I'd call that adamant that he's right, no matter what Rove's lawyer (Luskin) says.

Rob Rusick: Impeachment might be desirable
to prevent him from pardoning everyone of interest
before he leaves office.

I think there should be investigations of 'war-profiteering',
with an eye towards getting some of the money back,
to offset the debt which has been run up.

Even if it were not possible
to restore significant amount of money from 'war profiteers',
punishment is an appropriate consideration.

ABC NEWS calls being analyzed by gov't.

maybe ABC will start reporting what the White House has been up to now, rather than be the cheerleader squad. I just watched Cobert's speech again, and still get a chuckle when he tells the reporters that bush decides, snow tells, you write it down. Then tells them to enjoy the extra time, spend time with your family, write that novel that's been rattling around in your head. you know, the story about the intrepid reporter who investigates and uncovers some big issue.

Salon.com has an item about Leopold in its War Room blog today. It sounds like Mister L has a bit of a problem with the Truth. Damn. It's not like I still believed it was likely that Rove had already been indicted. If that had happened, it would have remained a secret for about as long as the Roswell incident did. Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were something looming, but actual documents being served, or other solid, verifiable, legal action is beginning to look unlikely.

But some sort of "don't leave town without telling me" could certainly trigger a rumour.

Nixon didn't have the apocalytic religion engine powering the cart of politics and religion consolidated that he is assaulting the entire world with. There are degrees of megalomania and arrogance, and Tricky Dicky was orders of magnitude less abomination that the Schmuck and those whose catamite he is...

Truthout's Marc Ash is sticking to its story that Rove will soon be indicted.

Argue all you want about indictiment, but have you considered a civil action. As we found out in Jones v Clinton, a sitting president can be sued. Here's a scenario for ya: A stack of lawsuits for wrongful death of the coal miners who died because Bush and his cronies at the Labor Department illegally blocked enforcement in exchange for soft PAC money. Bush walks out of that courtroom in just his underwear. Meanwhile the impeachment proceedings succeed, and Bush is desparate for a job to pay his legal bills. There are some openings in West Virginia -- you guessed it, put the bastard in the same mines that where he drove safety back to the stone ages.

Update:

excerpted from

http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2006/5/21/115826/135

"Further - and again this is "What We Believe" - Rove may be turning state's evidence. We suspect that the scope of Fitzgerald's investigation may have broadened - clearly to Cheney - and according to one "off the record source" to individuals and events not directly related to the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. We believe that the indictment which does exist against Karl Rove is sealed. Finally, we believe that there is currently a great deal of activity in the Plame investigation."

I'm waiting for the Apocalypse--the fall of Schmuck's totalitarian theocratic evil regime.

The WashPost quotes Rove's lawyer as saying it can't have happened.

Dreams die --
Rove Won't Be Charged in C.I.A. Leak Case

"On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove."

Yeah, John, I know. Put me in a bad mood for a while this morning.

Could mean Rove's turned state's evidence?

Either that or the NSA got something on Fitzpatrick.

Or maybe, just maybe, Fitzpatrick is going after larger game?

Like (be still my heart) Cheney?

Over at firedoglake, the favored speculation is that Rove cut a deal, which will hold up if he tells the trial jury the same thing he told the grand jury; otherwise he might be looking at the same kind of charges as Libby.

I'll believe Rove's free and clear when I see it announced by the prosecution.

Plan B:

Tub of chopped liver, visit to campaign contributor who runs a timber wolf sancturary.