[Sosfbay-discuss] THE PEOPLE V. RICHARD CHENEY

[JamBoi]

THE PEOPLE V. RICHARD CHENEY
Date:	 Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:35:33 -0500
 
http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_5402
Gentlemen's Quarterly
March 2007
THE PEOPLE V. RICHARD CHENEY
Resolved, that Richard B. Cheney, vice president of the United States,
should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that these
articles of impeachment be submitted to the American people
GQ, March 2007
When the Founding Fathers crafted the U.S. Constitution, they wanted to
be sure that the 
president, vice president, and other ranking officials could be evicted
more easily than the British monarchy. To ensure that the process would
be swift and certain, they made it simple: Only two conditions must be
met. First, a majority of the House of Representatives must agree on a
set of charges; then, two-thirds of the Senate must agree to convict.
After that, there is no legal wrangling, no appeal to a higher
authority, no reversal on technical grounds. There is not even a limit
on what the charges may be. As the Constitution describes it, the cause
may be "treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors," but
even these were left deliberately vague; as Gerald Ford once pointed
out while still serving in the House of Representatives, the only real
definition of an "impeachable offense" is "whatever a majority of the
House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in
history."

To the credit of this nation, despite the relative ease of impeachment,
only seventeen officials 
have sunk to such ignominious depths that the process has been invoked.
The reasons for impeachment have ranged from the outrageous to the
banal: from putting political enemies in jail (Judge James H. Peck,
1830) to cheating on taxes (Judge Harry E. Claiborne, 1986); from being
rude to Congress ("unmindful of the harmony and courtesies which ought
to exist and be maintained between the executive and legislative
branches," President Andrew Johnson, 1868) to being a drunkard ("a man
of loose morals and intemperate habits," Judge John Pickering, 1803).
One president was even impeached for having the good taste to keep his
sex life private (concealing "the nature and details of his
relationship with a subordinate Government employee," President William
Jefferson Clinton, 1998). 

<SNIP>

But none of these apply to Vice President Cheney, and not only because
it was Cheney (and not God, or George W. Bush, or anybody else) who
selected himself as vice president back in 2000. With Cheney, there are
also no lingering questions about capacity, motive, or malice. Over the
past six years, as the country has spiraled into military misadventure,
fiscal madness, and environmental meltdown, the vice president has not
merely been wrong about the issues; he has been duplicitous, deceitful,
and deliberately destructive to the American democracy. These things
can no longer be denied by rational minds.

___________________

JamBoi
Jammy The Sacred Cow Slayer

"Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
http://dailyJam.blogspot.com


 
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