Monday, July 09, 2007

Knee Bone Connected To The Arm Bone

No Category

So Scooter Libby, convicted by a jury of his peers, has been unconvicted by El Presidente. The ability of the President to pardon is enshrined in the constitution, and is generally constrained only by the ethics of the grantee of the power. Bush, determined to break down the agreements and conventions that have kept the country running for hundreds of years, has begun to pardon his inner circle. Under the Bush theory of the Presidency, any subordinate can commit a crime and be “pardoned”, or have his or her sentence commuted in advance. This leaves us with the uncomfortable situation of having a rather unconstrained executive branch, to say the least. Near as I can tell there is only ONE remedy for a President that abuses his authority in this fashion: Impeachment.

The President can pardon like mad unless Congress decides to remove him from office; I wonder what it would take to begin the process. I’ve been curious about how the GOP intends to shield its minions from a pissed-off inbound executive. Pardons can only happen if a prosecution has taken place, so unless they get those prosecutions cracking now, they’re going to be unshielded later on.

This is one of the highest profile cases on record that quantifies exactly how the dual system of justice in this country works.

Colleague Patton wrote not too long ago on this very topic, so I guess you could say that we disagree. The question remains: Where is the check and balance on the Executive when it comes to pardoning his own inner circle?

And just so we’re clear, I believe that the GOP has, in this round of administration, done nothing less than break down the barriers between church, state AND party. When members of the executive are emailing each other on their GOP party accounts discussing the introduction of the church into policy, you’ve got quite a trifecta underway.


Posted by Ross on 07/09/07 at 04:04 PM
No Category • Permalink