Well I didn’t want anything quite so dramatic as the “Black Hole of Crawford”, er, I mean “Calcutta,” but I think they are so deserving of one another they should stay in close proximity. You know the “birds of a feather” argument.

Just one personal note.

Sorry, but I am not a government visitor, but a private citizen who, in fact, happened to vote for Gore and Kerry and expects to vote for Obama, and I am not Russ or Dundar or any other pseudonym on the site. I used a single pen name for all these posts, and it seems that each of you are also using a nom de plume.

Hey Mespo,

Sort of drifted away from cyberspace for a while; a good thing.

But speaking of fitting the Bush administration into one box, have you seen those ads on television for MrChipper?

You’d have six months to try for free!

Just a thought.

Bob

I agree that Publius seems very well informed. I do believe he was a govt. visitor. When I wrote that yesterday this page locked up on my computer and I couldn’t even get to the comments of anyone, only JT’s original posts. I think they are nervous about Suskind’s book and mounting evidence of detainee torture and abuse. With the sorry state of our media and Congress I’m not so sure they should be worried! Here’s hoping that all this evidence disturbs enough people to force cheney and bush to resign. It happened to Nixon, it could happen again.

Russ and Dundar I can see, but Publius is a little to well spoken. Also he doesn’t seem to be supporting the Bush administration, just claiming that impeachment is pointless.

Your comment about the coffin size crates was just what I was thinking about yesterday. When the CIA rendered Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, he was put in a coffin for days on end as part of his torture. Although the CIA later admitted the rendition was a mistake the supreme court in the US would not allow Mr. el-Masri to pursue his court case against the U.S. for the administrations unlawful action.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/03/AR2005120301476.html

I wonder what this means to the Middle Eastern peace agreement Bush has been working so hard to obtain before the end of this year.

“How many crates would it take to box up the Bush administration?”

******************************

Hey Bob long time no see. To answer your query, I guess thousands of them but I’d be willing to try to fit them all into one.

rcambel: you need to grow up and stop being a whiner.

Impossible. The criminal, Bush, got just over 50% of the electorate which was only about 30% of the eligible voters which is about 60% of the population. That is 50% of 30% of 60% of 300 million people. That’s about 9%. No one except those lunatics who supported this evil empire in the White House would condone this activity. Ok, I’ll double it to 20% (gotta include you and your vast network of like-minded but non-voting “friends”).

The rest of us love America and believe in what it stands for.

Do you take a poll before you make ethical choices?
John McCain used to say it was about us, not them. He WAS right about that. This is about who we are and what we stand for.
Another thing to consider is: 1. who gets to determine who’s violent? and 2. after mistreating a prisoner will they really be less dangerous to our soldiers? Unless you plan to lock them up forever or kill them, sometime you will have to deal with a person you abused. That doesn’t make you safe.

Got a source for that number?

Let’s face it, no matter what our soldiers did to defend themselves or Iraquis concerned about these violent offenders, a few % of Americans would complain because they like to complain, not because a President Obama or Clinton would do anything different.

These violent offenders more than likely harmed innocent civilians time & again and would continue to do so if allowed to. Again, I don’t understand what there is to gain by complaining about such a trivial thing as how our soldiers keep themselves safe while helping the Iraquis control the violent offenders but keep complaining ’cause NOBODY IS LISTENING!

As to the “implies… impeachment” portion, I gave impeachment as an example of the negative consequences that oversight could imply. I did not give it as THE example. I’ll let you look up difference between E.G. and I.E.

Sorry, Jill, you are wrong. I am a private citizen. I am sure that the prospect of impeachment is giving the administration some sleepless afternoons these days.

You can have oversight without negative consequences. The concept does not necessarily imply negative consequences. Oversight of an agency may find that there was no wrongdoing, but it is still necessary and useful for public knowledge of agency operations. This is not voyeurism. It happens all the time

There, that is what is wrong.

The other thing that is wrong is that your words state that “oversight implies … impeachment.” Not always. Hardly ever.

There isn’t anything wrong with your statement. I have to say that I believe Publius is a visitor from the govt. because the administration is nervous right now.

What exactly is wrong with my statement? You yourself include my example of a negative consequence in a list of negative consequences.

That is just wrong. There are many things short of impeachment that can ensue from oversight, including legislation, criminal referral to the Justice Department, civil enforcement, and more, including impeachment in very rare cases where a consensus prevails.

I don’t know, I really like some of the things Harpo Marx had to say.

I’d like to admit straight out that:
a) the joke’s very dated
b) I stole it from Annie
c) seriously, it’s the one good line

The concept of oversight implies negative consequences (e.g. impeachment). Otherwise it’s just voyeurism.

Our celebrities are kind of ditzy!

Elect a President and a Congress.

Conduct oversight.

Forget impeachment.

Publius is a fatalist. “The fault, dear country, lies not in ourselves, but the stars.”

BTW, If you knew that the Constitution does not provide for recall, stop using the word. Recall means that the voters remove the incumbent before the term ends. Don’t use the word if you don’t mean it. Say that she should be defeated for reelection.

Turley lost big time on the Clinton impeachment. The learing curve has to start sometime.

Feel free to go to her district and campaign against her, altough her people are unlikely to heed uninformed outsiders.

Also, since this blog is conducted by a conlaw teacher, please note that there is no provision whatsoever for recall in the constitution. The repeated calls for recall betray ignorance.

Members may be expelled by a two-thirds vote of their respective Houses. They may not be recalled by their voters.

Kucinich was free to run against Pelosi for Speaker at the start of this Congress, but did not do so, and will be free to do so again in the next Congress. He will get a landslide vote of one.