Impeachment and accountability

by Kagro X

Josh Marshall notes, in the wake of the NYT editorial, that the impeachment of a cabinet secretary has only been undertaken once in our history, and noting "the big 'unless'":

Unless the president is party to the wrongdoing that placed the cabinet secretary in jeopardy. And that is clearly the case we have here, which explains the historical anomaly that the possibility of Gonzales' impeachment is even a topic of serious conversation.

In light of that big unless, I would remind you of this, for which we can thank James Madison:

[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...

That quote was originally offered in a Daily Kos piece, in connection with the Scooter Libby pardon. But it's equally applicable to the Gonzales situation.

As is this, from eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.:

Obviously a President need not be impeached because an obscure official buried deep in the endless bureaucracy, someone he does not know and probably has never heard of, does something wrong. But it is an extraordinary idea that a President is not responsible to some degree for the behavior of those intimates with whom he chooses to surround himself in the White House and the Cabinet.

Schlesinger, writing here in May 1974, is speaking of the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon in an article I've cited numerous times before entitled, "What if we don't impeach him?" (PDF) And his arguments are eerily prescient of the predicament we face today:

The practical point is irresistible. If Mr. Nixon did not know what his right-hand men were doing, it was only because he did not wish to know. He had every facility in the world for finding out. And if Congress should decide that a President is no longer to be held broadly accountable for the conduct of his most personal appointees, it would obviously encourage future Presidents to wink at every sort of skulduggery so long as nothing could be traced to a specific directive from the Oval Office.

What, exactly, do you think all this, "I don't recall" business is designed to do? Wink, wink.

Schlesinger continues:

The constitutional point is equally irresistible. Madison was the father of the Constitution. The First Congress, because it contained so many men who had been at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, has been called an adjourned session of the Constitutional Convention. Madison in the First Congress successfully argued that the President must have power to remove his appointees. Assuring the President this power, Madison said, would "make him, in a peculiar manner, responsible for their conduct, and subject him to impeachment himself [Schlesinger's emphasis], if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses. On the Constitutionality of the declaration I have no manner of doubt." If the Ninety-third Congress should now decide that it understands constitutionality better than Madison and the First Congress, if it concludes that Mr. Nixon has no responsibility for the conduct of his closest associates, it would confirm Mr. Nixon's success in breaking the Presidency out of the historic system of accountability and in fastening a new conception of Presidential responsibility on the American republic.

What would that "new conception" be? Why, that the elections are the "accountability moment," after which, what the president says, goes. With the imprimatur of the people.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections."

Remember that?

It's just as Schlesinger predicted. Jumping ahead a bit in his article:

Future Presidents will be tempted most of all to assume that the American people in the end really prefer a regime based on and limited to the idea of quadrennial accountability so long as it is divorced from the stupidity of a Watergate burglary.

Elections are the extent of the people's ability to demand accountability, in George W. Bush's mind. And he wants them to be the extent of accountability in your mind, too.

The failure even to hold Gonzales accountable for his part in this would be a complete abdication of the Congress' responsibility to preserve and exercise an absolutely critical element of the ongoing scheme of accountability designed by the Founders. It was to the Congress that the Founders entrusted the only mechanisms of mid-term accountability that could be brought to bear directly on the president and his administration. Giving that up would be an error of incalculable magnitude.

Comments

[William Ockham]

This is a point that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. If the President has a cabinet official who is clearly breaking the law and the President does not remove him, the President should be impeached. That is exactly what the founders intended. We need to get this idea into the national discourse. It is simple, straightforward, and puts the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales crowd on the defensive.

[bmaz]

Truly, and I am not trying to be shrill here, but if the Democratically controlled Congress, most significantly the House of Representatives, does not own up to it's sworn duty to uphold and protect the Constitution it stands in no better shoes than the President turning a knowing and willful blind eye as contemplated by both Madison and Schlesinger. The current position of our Democratic Congressional leaders is both an abrogation and dereliction of duty.

[Mimikatz]

Or, as John Nichols said on the Bill Moyers Journal, "Impeachment isn;t a constitutional crisis; it is the cure for a constitutional crisis." We are already in a constitutional crisis, and the sooner Congress realizes it the better. It is naive in the extreme for them to just think that they can wait it out, and that things will really change in January 2009 if they do nothing.

[the third man]

this is a important piece. it is simple, clear and understandable by the majority. A question that harks back to Mondale's op-ed piece this morning - Answering to No One - is whether this clause would also apply to Cheney, as he has to go at the same time or earlier!

[Jodi]

Ahhh.

Who has a worse approval rating than the Republican President?

Why the Democratically controlled Congress does!

[Kagro X]

Ahhh.

Who has a worse approval rating that the Democratically controlled Congress?

Why the Republican Vice President does!

Is this a limbo contest? Your turn!

[Slothrop]

And the reason the Democratically controlled Congress is showing low approval numbers is that they've failed to remove our troops from Iraq...the reason the were voted into office, according to the polls.

I think we're on the impeachment road these days. It's starting to take on a certain inevitability.

[Mimikatz]

Jodi, you are wrong. The Dems in Congress have a higher approval than Bush and the Republicans in Congress are even lower than Bush. See here.

[monzie]

If no impeachment over these horrors, then what in the future would be grounds for impeachment?

The country's moral fibre disintegrates.

What do we tell the children?

[Phli]

Let's see could a resignation and a recess appointment next month be out of the question? How's about Bork for AG or Ted Olsen........

[sojourner]

If there is no impeachment -- i.e. no accountability outside of an election -- there will never again be justice in our nation. The criminals that were elected and then appointed think that they are immune to prosecution.

The House of Representatives is slow to act. Unless there is impeachment, all of Congress is declaring itself to be irrelevant in running our country. Representatives and Senators are taking themselves out of the game when we badly need them to do what we elected them to do.

I was reading Mimikatz' posting a little earlier, and I pray that Congress will keep itself in session. The cost of doing that, versus the cost of cleaning up behind this administration is peanuts! This is just a little more important, in my book, than going out to raise money for their campaigns.

[Semanticleo]

Jodi;

Get back to your paying job, phishing.

[Jodi]

Mimikatz,
your poll is particular to the War, and I agree that to me the War is the major thing, but in general for Job Approval
the Poll that popped up immediately when I put in the number 23 which I remembered was:

June 13, 2007, MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19209733

Job Approval
Bush 29%
congress 23%
Country in Right Direction 19%

"Also in the poll, only 23 percent approve of the job that Congress is doing, a decline of eight points since April. That number is within striking distance of the 16-percent rating Congress held in October 2006, just before Republicans lost control of both the Senate and House in last year’s midterms."

Karo X,

I am not sure of Cheney's ratings. Why don't you share?

Semanticleo,

some (maybe even you, I don't keep track) have implied or outright said that I am paid to post here.
~I don't recall.~

Everyone should note that despite all sorts of wild accusations and putdowns, I have retained my good humor and fresh insight.

[Neil]

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[mighty mouse]

For oh so many reasons, my thoughts and prayers at this moment are with Free Patriot and his mom...

[Neil]

Kagro X How does daily kos deal with bloggers who are less interested in the topic of the post and more interested in disrupting any serious discourse?

[Semanticleo]

"I have retained my good humor and fresh insight."

I empathize with you because I mostly post where my presence is not appreciated, but I occasionally score a point despite my
bad humor.

[Kagro X]

Normally they get ignored at Daily Kos. But I never miss a chance to tell Jodi she's nucking futs.

[Neil]

Call me crazy but I just get the feeling that Jodi is not operating in good faith.

[William Ockham]

My prayers are with freepatriot and his mother as well.

[orionATL]

fine research

and informative.

but with respect to the affection for impeaching pres bush -

why not just stick with impeaching gonzales?

that action has the highest probability of success

of any impeachment activity,

and for conviction (in the senate) -

not that the latter probability is all that high.

the point is, as i think e'wheel commented recently, it's the process that counts.

once impeachment of gonzales in the house begins,

let's see how fred fielding and bush, among other players, decide to respond.

the political situation created will be very dynamic.

who knows what action will lead to what reaction.

lots of players, lots of feedback circuits.

[Boo Radley]

In honor of Free Patriot, "Tokyo Jodi."

[Dismayed]

LOL, NEIL.

Jodi's full of it. Same pattern over and over. Snark - Gets eviscerated - Bashes bush for running the war badly - makes one reasonable comment - Then back to snark once someone allows that she made a reasonable comment.

That's the pattern over and over.

Before long she'll kill off her imaginary brother.

A tiresome but reasonably harmless troll.

[Tre Beloc]

My prayers are with jodi's mother.

[Kagro X]

I'm happy to accept impeachment of Gonzales as an opener, but it doesn't really address the problem that's at the heart of things.

I'd be happier still if I believed that Congress would follow the facts and their logical implications to their natural conclusions, but I doubt they'd be willing to do so. I think they'll take Gonzo's scalp (if they take anyone's) and be happy.