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This was a forum originally Posted on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 by Harpers Magazine.com. Edited selections from a forum moderated by Sam Seder and featuring Representative John Conyers Jr., John Dean, Former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, Lewis Lapham, and Michael Ratner, held March 2, 2006 at Town Hall in New York City.
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1. The Elements of Impeachment

SAM SEDER: Michael, you're a constitutional scholar. Tell us, what is impeachment?

MICHAEL RATNER: Impeachment is the manner in which the House and the Senate remove a president from office. To impeach is to indict for treason, bribery, high crimes, or misdemeanors. After the indictment or impeachment, which can be done by a majority, the Senate then tries the president, or vice-president, or other officer. A lot of the dispute over impeachment has to do with the definition of not “treason and bribery” (which is not the normal means of impeachment )but “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It's an ancient phrase that goes back to the Constitution.

It sounds today like “high crimes and misdemeanors” means “criminal acts,” but impeachment does not necessarily have to mean a criminal act. It was a means put into the Constitution, based on the experience of the colonists with the king.

A term I like to use is executive tyranny—impeachment is a means of removing the president when there is executive tyranny.

SAM SEDER: Now Lewis Lapham, in your most recent article in Harper's Magazine, your piece “The Case for Impeachment,” you say the framers created impeachment not as a punishment, but as a remedy. What did you mean by that?

LEWIS LAPHAM: Well, it's to protect the checks and balances of power. It's to protect the principle of our government: judiciary, executive and legislative. That is what Washington in his farewell address calls the wholesome arrangement of public administration which must be protected from the despotism of faction.

Bush is not, in Michael's phrase, protecting and preserving the Constitution. There is an an attack of executive tyranny on our system of government, a despotism forced on the Congress. And therefore it is up to the Congress to uphold the principle of separation of powers to impeach Bush. To me it's a very clear obligation on the part of the Congress. It's not Democrat or Republican, it's the Congress as a whole—and if it doesn't impeach him, it seems to me, how does it retain its either (A) function, or (B) self-respect?

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i will keep my comments to my self...

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For being a Dumb Ass Military Commander in Chief--of course:
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Colum...5/1505610.html

On the other hand now:

If Sectors of the White Ruling Class are heavily invested in Military Industrial Complex stocks like Raytheon(the Cruise Missile Boyz)--

----and the Cash keeps rolling in as Missiles and Bombs get replaced-- then Impeachment Ain't Happening---'cause WAR means PAYDAY!!!!.

I kno Homeland security monitoring your ass

Boy Wonder:

You seen that Skeletal Looking MudderfuKKKer that runs US Homeland Security-----

-----He needs to be Monitoring his motherfocking X-rays.