The "I" word

Ivan Eland argues that George W. Bush is the latest in a series of presidents who has done things to merit impeachment.

Several recent presidents could have been impeached for selected unconstitutional or illegal actions during their presidencies. But the sitting president, George W. Bush, may win the prize for committing the most impeachable offenses of any recent president.

Yet when one thinks of bad behavior leading down the road to possible impeachment, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind first. Although Bill Clinton was impeached for having sex with an intern and then lying about it to a grand jury, a better case could have been made to impeach him for conducting an unconstitutional war over Kosovo without approval by Congress. The articles of Nixon’s impeachment centered on his use of illegal surveillance methods against political opponents and obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress in covering it up. His launching of an unconstitutional war in Cambodia without congressional approval was equally serious, but was left out of the articles. Curiously, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon’s predecessor, also used illegal surveillance activities against political rivals, but was not impeached.

Ronald Reagan, who is now a celebrated past president and icon of conservatives, justifiably feared impeachment for the Iran-Contra affair. He knowingly violated the Arms Export Control Act, a criminal statute, and sold arms to radical supporters of terrorists. His administration also unconstitutionally violated a congressional prohibition on providing money and support to the Nicaraguan Contra fighters. The Reagan administration’s violation of the Boland Amendment stuck a knife in the heart of the checks and balances system in the U.S. Constitution by circumventing Congress’s most important power—the appropriation of public monies.

George W. Bush is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, but may have left more tracks. …(read more.)

Seems like a radical fringe notion, but stranger things have happened. Maybe we need the equivalence of a “no confidence” vote like they have in parliamentary systems?