Text 16792, 52 rader
Skriven 2005-12-24 19:06:30 av BOB SAKOWSKI (1:123/140)
Ärende: Barron's no less
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Barron's calls for impeachment (via Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture)

    "AS THE YEAR WAS DRAWING TO A CLOSE, we picked up our New York Times
and learned that the Bush administration has been fighting terrorism by
intercepting communications in America without warrants. It was worrisome
on its face, but in justifying their actions, officials have made a bad
situation much worse: Administration lawyers and the president himself have
tortured the Constitution and extracted a suspension of the separation of
powers . . .

    Certainly, there was an emergency need after the Sept. 11 attacks to
sweep up as much information as possible about the chances of another
terrorist attack. But a 72-hour emergency or a 15-day emergency doesn't
last four years . . .

    Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is
at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office
desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee
who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at
this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and
report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the
president or a bill of impeachment.

    It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to
that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional
right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set
wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president
to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into
law.

    Some ancillary responsibility, however, must be attached to those
members of the House and Senate who were informed, inadequately, about the
wiretapping and did nothing to regulate it. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV,
Democrat of West Virginia, told Vice President Dick Cheney in 2003 that he
was "unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse these activities." But the
senator was so respectful of the administration's injunction of secrecy
that he wrote it out in longhand rather than give it to someone to type.
Only last week, after the cat was out of the bag, did he do what he should
have done in 2003 -- make his misgivings public and demand more
information.

    Published reports quote sources saying that 14 members of Congress were
notified of the wiretapping. If some had misgivings, apparently they were
scared of being called names, as the president did last week when he said:
"It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program
in a time of war. The fact that we're discussing this program is helping
the enemy."

    Wrong. If we don't discuss the program and the lack of authority for
it, we are meeting the enemy -- in the mirror.
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