Reply #198: You point is still absolutely wrong. [View All]

[Seabiscuit]

You CANNOT count the criminal court trial against the burglars apprehended at the Watergate hotel as part of "the investigation" when you're discussing Congress. Congress had absolutely nothing to do with that trial and that trial had absolutely nothing to do with Nixon or anyone involved in the White House. To say "the investigation" took two years" means you're including that criminal trial as part of a Congressional "investigation" which I'm sure even you know is utterly absurd, because you're the one who started a thread talking about *Congress*. The Senate Select Committee on Watergate investigation took about 6 months, from the spring of 1973 to the end of summer, 1973, and resulted turning mere suspicions about abuse of power/impeachable conduct into solid evidence of the same and also resulted in the appointment of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, whose firing by Nixon led to the Impeachment hearings which again only took about 6 months.

If you want to add the Senate Investigation to the House Impeachment investigation, you can claim a TOTAL OF ONE YEAR of "investigation" by Congress beginning with a special committee of the Senate convening as a result of mere suspicions of wrongdoing. But you CANNOT CLAIM TWO YEARS. That claim is patently false. The current Congress has had actual knowledge of years of solid evidence of abuse of power by Bush and Cheney (not mere suspicions) to support impeachment proceediings, yet has done absolutely nothing about it. That's such a travesty I and countless others who you accuse of being "impatient" consider it treasonous.

See my other posts for more elaboration on such points.

Your fundamental point trying to use Watergate as an example of Congress taking some supposedly agonizingly slow "two years" to get a job done so we should be "patient" with the current Congress is patently ridiculous, and comparing this Congress which refuses to do its Constitutional duty to the Congress during Nixon's second term which executed its Constitutional duties promptly, thoroughly, and efficiently is patently absurd. After Nixon resigned the country experienced a huge sigh of relief, and the common phrase of the day was that "the system worked", meaning Congress and the Courts proved worthy of their Constitutional responsibilities in a supremely successful manner, meaning our democratic institutions worked, meaning our system of checks and balances worked. I followed it all closely and it inspired me to attend law school, which I completed. Today our democratic instutions appear to be broken, and despite the fact that Dems since late January have held immense power with their new committee chairs and large majority in the House, their inaction on the most critical issues of our time is so shameful that opinion pollsters show that this Congress is about as popular as Dick Cheney.