Accountability cuts both ways, Senator: Of empty outrage and forsaken impeachment

You've got to hand it to this administration. It doesn't spring surprises. It is, instead, consistently corrupt, or incompetent, or both. It never fails to live up to our every expectation.

And on occasion it even folds a little ingenuity into its corrupt incompetence, such as opening whole new creative vistas in criminal jurisprudence. For instance rather than offering immunity to just one or two potential defendants among a herd of contemptible wrongdoers, why not immunize -- and while they're at it, with no legal authority to do so -- virtually the whole bloody lot of them? That oughta crack the case, for sure.

The reporting on this Keystone Cop affair has been cornered -- almost amusingly -- into the realms of high understatement and cognitive dissonance. The State Department's incompetence -- or deliberate criminal malfeasance: "Don't worry, boys, we know how to screw this investigation up beyond all legal repair" -- was so stupendously imbecilic, it left journalists with the untidy task of trying to nonjudgmentally frame the department's idiocy, while also having to judgmentally offer a peek into the idiocy's certain denouement.

Before delicately noting that "usually, people suspected of crimes are not given immunity," the New York Times characterized the nevertheless-proffered immunity as "a potentially serious investigative misstep that could complicate efforts to prosecute the company’s employees."

You think? Well, you think right. Because elsewhere the paper noted that "the courts have made it all but impossible to prosecute defendants who have been granted immunity since the appellate court reversals of the Iran-contra affair convictions against John M. Poindexter, a former national security adviser, and Oliver L. North, a national security aide, who had each been immunized by Congress."

The intentional mess has also left Congressional Democrats flummoxed, though for the life of me I can't understand why (see this column's opening lines). But rather than joining journalists in high understatement, their reaction has been to stage only the customary high theatre in the typical two acts: outrage, followed by no follow-through, willful impotence and indecent resignation.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, for instance, "issued an angry statement." Oh my. Said the Judiciary chairman, "In this administration, accountability goes by the boards. If you get caught, they will give you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence."

He neglected to add: Then they'll give you the Medal of Freedom. Or is it the Iron Cross, First Class. I forget.

What the good senator also neglected to take into public consideration, however, is that when it's the criminals themselves in charge of accountability dispensation, one can't really expect said accountability to go anywhere but "by the boards."

As I recall, that's why the Framers charged Congress with a little something called oversight -- checks and balances, co-equal powers, all manner of elaborate pushbacks; and if things get too far out of control, removal from executive office.

These weren't mere and gentle suggestions, Senator Leahy. They were constitutional imperatives: "The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office" when they're found to be a lawless bunch of thugs, to mix the verbatim with the vernacular.

Hence accountability cuts both ways, Senator. So as you and your colleagues (with the notable exception of integrity-laden Dennis Kucinich) fail to live up to your end of the constitutional bargain, you might want to put a lid on the empty outrage. It's insulting to those with respect for the constitutional imperatives going by the board, and right "off the table."

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Comments

[via]

With this congress, if you get caught and convicted you get a stern letter or rebuke.

If they aren't going to do anything other than "demand accountability" they ought to STFU and go home until we can elect other who will.

[Realist]

AMEN! Let me hear you shout out "AMEN" progressive brothers and sisters!

Because we currently have no other political option (a situation I advocate correcting once we repair the damage from this current fiasco), we need to let those we sent last fall to the Congress with a majority know that we expect them to do the job we entrusted to them. By doing so, we also let them know that they don't have a free ride on our dime, for we will do the same to them when - not if - it becomes necessary.

This two-party shamocracy must die if freedom and liberty are to survive in this nation. There must be at least one other party in power to act as the balance between these two corrupt RICO suspects known as the Democratic and Republican Parties, and I propose that party be the American People.

I only say this, despite recent history, because I'm seeing signs that "traditional" Republican supporters are beginning to see things as we progressives do. This is to be encouraged. But we cannot allow the debate to remain party based and manipulated by the special interests of both factions. The people must have their say.

[quousque]

I strongly am in favor of impeachment, but ......... when the majority of Congress is complicit in voting to abet all the crimes of Bush's Gang, upon what claim to higher principles could they now stand in judgement? If they can't even see fit to stop the funding for an illegal war/occupation, then impeachments for lying us into it is far beyond impossible for them to muster.

[Mira]

HOW BUSH WILL CANCEL THE 2008 ELECTIONS:

This Congress is, has been, always will be impotent. Why are we surprised? They've given Bush everything he's ever wanted. Now he's announced he's going to bypass Congress with Executive Orders, which he's been doing all along. This is where all this is heading. Read on:

"THE REVELATIONS OF GEORGE W. BUSH" is a copy of a document allegedly leaked from the Oval Office. It says there will be a bioterrorist attack right before the 2008 elections, and that President Bush will impose martial law. You've been hearing about it for months, but now you'll get the inside scoop on: additional surveillance (how can the government keep you safe when it doesn't know what the hell you're doing?) and much much more.

It's a peek into the future, which can happen sooner than we think. Actually any day now. Get ready 'cause here I come...
www.revelationsofgeorgewbush.com

[Mira]

Today House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced from the bully pulpit:

"The President wants the same complacent, complicit Congress that was a co-conspirator in a cover-up of what was going on in this country." Wants???? The President has the same complacent etc.....

[epppie]

Ten months, and all the Dems have to show for it is a whole lot of hot air. They accomplished more investigation when they were the out party. Makes ya wonder.

Conyers in particular, was a freaking lion when he was out of power.