Too bad for you. Tou’ve been overruled.

No, I advocated the war. I trusted the president when he spoke unequivocally. Silly me, I thought that meant he knew his assertions were true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I’m less naive now.

Yes I did. You must have “missed” it.

Must have. Would you mind pointing out the comment number and paragraph?

Too bad for you. Tou’ve been overruled.

“You have yet to cite a single false statement in the study.”

Yes I did. You must have “missed” it.

You’re wrong. You need to read it again.

1. It specifically DOES mention Al Qaida

2. I never said it didn’t.

You’re right. I’m sorry I missed that.

What I said was that “the Iraqi government was in league with Al Qaida” was NEVER an official reason given by the government for using military force against the Baathists

How do you define “official reason”? Is it limited solely to the resolution?

I bet I can find documentation of numerous officials speaking in their official capacity about such a collaboration.

“Are you seriously suggesting that those organizations were the ones being referred to in the Authorization?”

Since that’s exactly what the authorization says, of course that’s what I’m suggesting…

No, the resolution mentioned none of the organizations that you cited. It used the nonspecific term “terrorists”.

Is what the authorization says right? Damn straight it’s right. Al Qaida members were in Iraq and that’s a totally valid reason to use force against Al Qaida in Iraq (whether they’re in cahoots with the Baathists or not).

I don’t know for sure that it was correct, but I’m more than willing to concede that al Qaida members were in Iraq, just as they are in most other countries.

In addition, the Baathists were supporting and harboring other terrorist groups that had ALREADY killed Americans, and that’s a totally valid reason to use force against the Baathists whether they’re in cahoots with Al Qaida or not.

Hell, we should have gone to war with the Baathists even before they invaded Kuwait for that reason alone.

I fully support the war against the Baathists (and their terrorist proxies) and I would even if the government was wrong about everything else (which they weren’t).

That’s all fine and dandy that you were and are willing to go to war over such things. I’m telling you here and now that I wasn’t and won’t. I don’t think many other Americans were either.

I wasn’t blogging much back then, but I discussed it at length with my friends and family. I believed that Iraq was working to acquire nuclear weapons and were a significant risk to pass such technology to al Qaida.

I’ve never lost any sleep over mustard gas, Kurds, or Palestine. I’m not about to spend future generations into debt in some vain attempt to create world peace.

All I cared about was a game-changing weapon and a group that perpetrated a very successful attack on our mainland.

And that “study” is absolute crap.

You have yet to cite a single false statement in the study. Have you read it?

Yesterday we read about the study purporting to prove that Bush had lied about Iraq war… and how the study was in fact funded by George Soros and other moonbats, a fact left out of most MSM reports carrying the…

Thanks

Still, your cut and paste job aside, it’s amusing that you didn’t get the point. Not a single action by Bush is an example of an impeachable offense.

Of course, an impeachment of Bush over legitimate actions taken as president would certainly make the office of the president a neutered, useless one for the rest of our history it is true.

Now, if that is your goal, I can see why you’d want to use Bush to accomplish your goals. After all, you don’t want to wait around for any REAL reasons to get your destructive ideas implemented. You’ll be happy to demagogue this situation to facilitate your ends I’m sure.

I do understand. Like all zealots, any excuse will do. truth is a useless human failing to such as you.

What are Impeachable Offenses?
Summary: According to the Constitution: “…Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Treason and Bribery are clear. The definition of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was left intentionally vague by the founders but is generally considered to refer to misconduct or a violation of the public trust that is injurious to society. They are not limited to statutory violations (breaking regular laws).

A President often does things that people disagree with. But those actions are not normally something that can lead to impeachment. This leads us to an important question: for what specific actions can a President or Officer be impeached?

The basis for impeachment comes from the US Constitution. Article II, Sec. 4 states that:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
The crimes of Treason and Bribery are fairly straightforward. But what are “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”? The framers of the Constitution deliberately borrowed this phrase from English parliamentary law. It was first used in 1386 to impeach the King’s Chancellor. Michael de le Pole, Earl of Suffolk. He broke a promise to parliament regarding improvements in the King’s Estate and also failed to pay ransom money for the town of Ghent.

In the midst of Watergate, the Judiciary wrote a report on impeachment.[1] They stated:

‘Two points emerge from the 400 years of English parliamentary experience with the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” First the particular allegations of misconduct alleged damage to the state in such forms as misapplication of funds, abuse of official power, neglect of duty, encroachment on Parliament¹s prerogatives, corruption, and betrayal of trust. Second, the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” was confined to parliamentary impeachments; it had no roots in the ordinary criminal law, and the particular allegations of misconduct under that heading were not necessarily limited to common law or statutory derelictions or crimes.’

The subject of impeachment was debated by the Founding Fathers during the Constitutional conventions. The Federalist Papers give rationale for many parts of the Constitution and are often used to interpret the intent of the framers.

In Federalist No. 65 [2], Alexander Hamilton described the subject of impeachment as:

“those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself”

James Iredell at the North Carolina Constitutional convention, argued that the President:

“Must certainly be punishable for giving false information to the Senate. He is to regulate all intercourse with foreign powers, and it is his duty to impart to the Senate every material intelligence he receives. If it should appear that he has not given them full information, but has concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated, and by that means induced them to enter into measures injurious to their country, and which they would not have consented to had the true state of things been disclosed to them,”

The general message from interpreters of the Constitution is that impeachable offenses are not limited to specific violation of criminal statutes. The contitution was intentionally vague on this point to allow flexibility in prosecuting a President. Justice Joseph Story wrote in his Commentaries on the Constitution in 1833:

“Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power; but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches, what are aptly termed political offenses, growing out of personal misconduct or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, various in their character, and so indefinable in their actual involutions, that it is almost impossible to provide systematically for them by positive law.”

A more recent writing reinforces the vague definition of an impeachable offense. In a House Judiciary sub-committee panel discussion on the Clinton impeachment, Rep. Charles Canaday, (R) Florida wrote [3]:

“The House has never in any impeachment inquiry or proceeding adopted either a comprehensive definition of high crimes and misdemeanors or a catalogue of offenses that are impeachable. Instead, the House has dealt with the misconduct of federal officials on a case by case basis…”

Back in 1970, Rep. Gerald R. Ford defined impeachable offenses as “whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.” That is probably a reasonable definition, consistent with the intentions of the Founding Fathers.