Letters to the Editor
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High crimes
"2) Just as a thought excercise - had the Democrats actually gone and tried to impeach Bush, who do you think it would've helped? Hillary b/c it continues the battle that her and Bill were central to in the 90s? Or Obama with his "let's put all this nastiness behind us" rhetoric? I suspect Hillary would've really benefitted from an impeachment proceeding. Any thoughts?"
Impeachment and a senate trial would have helped the nation, just as the impending impeachment of Nixon helped the nation. It would have also helped decrease the power of the Executive, much as it did to Clinton, but for more defensible reasons. It would also have been a powerful bargaining chip. It would have set a higher standard for the future.
Whether it would have helped the campaigns of the sitting Senators, perhaps not. Obviously they (and Democratic allies in the house) calculated it did not.
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re: Bush Rules v. Clinton Rules
sclloyd,
"You never thought it was "unsporting" to parse Bill Clinton's words, did you, Walter? But, then, a lie about a blow job is so much worse than lies about war and weapons of mass destruction."
Indeed it IS...when you are committing perjury (i.e. lying under oath). After all, if you can't trust someone not to lie under oath after putting their hand on the bible in a trial, how can you believe him if he puts his hand on a bible swearing to support and defend the Consitution of the US when being sworn into the Presidency?
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If there was anything to wax nostalgic over...
...it was the era in which the President submitted a written statement to the Congress, and that was that. Every year we have this spectacle which had little or nothing at all to do with the actual state of the union, and everything to do with the sort of "Nuremberg Rally" event Hitler used to do every year.
Regardless of what anyone might think of Herbert Hoover, a read of his state of the union reports (available at the Library of Congress' website) is very instructional. He may not have had a clue how serious the Depression was or how to effectively deal with it, but the information he provided to Congress was well-organized to a fault. Reading any of them was far more satisfactory than watching President Bush play a tinpot dictator to a joint session of Congress.
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