Because of GOP, threat of impeachment can’t check Bush’s power

[kskiska]

Friday, January 27, 2006
MARIE COCCO

WASHINGTON - Clinton did it. The most rabid of Bill Clinton’s detractors still mine what they believe to be a trove of irresponsibility unparalleled in presidential history. At the moment, they’ve got a peculiar problem that they perceive is solvable with a twist on the Clinton Solution.

They are trying to justify four years of secret, widespread, warrantless snooping on Americans by the Bush White House by drawing a rhetorical parallel to a 1993 search of the home of the Soviet spy Aldrich Ames. It was conducted before Congress had written a law regulating this type of search in a foreign intelligence case, an oversight later remedied with Clinton administration support.

(snip)

In truth, the public would have no stomach for another impeachment drama, and that exposes the problem. The Clinton affair was never a constitutional crisis. It was political theater. Now we’ve got a genuine crisis, and no way to resolve it while still recovering from the Lewinsky hangover. Specter himself seems to say so.

(snip)

Republican lawmakers often said they were pursuing President Clinton for his transgressions because otherwise, “what would we tell the children?” What we’re telling them now is that there is a partisan double standard under which some presidents really are above the law.

more…
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=265944&Category=14