Can any of you help me with this RETORT from freeper?

[TNOE]

About Bush & Cheney refusing to testify under oath at the 9/11 hearings? I'm hiding in the loung because they'll probably check GD.

The fact the wordy here can't fathom the seperation of powers that Bush/Cheney maintained by not allowing themselves to be..."compelled to testify" before congress is instructive as to her other cogintive abilities. Had Bush or Cheney allowed congress to set precident by compelling them to testify under oath, then future Presidents and any member of the Executive Office could likewise be compelled to testify against their will to congress, thereby upsetting the threeway balance of powers between the three CO-EQUAL branches of Government.

[XemaSab]

1. Why shouldn't the president be compelled to tell the truth?

:shrug:

[TNOE]

2. That's not flying

He's stating that this was a GREAT thing Bush & Cheney did - so I'm at a loss here.

[XemaSab]

3. I got no solutions.

:shrug:

[JackBeck]

4. By not testifying under oath, they expose yet another lie to the American

people. That the administration is transparent. Besides, when did Mr. Freeper have the ability to look into the future?

[Radical Activist]

5. Clinton already testified under oath

The precedent has already been set, making the point moot, and I bet Freepers didn't mind then. Bush didn't want to take the risk of being impeached for lying under oath like Clinton was.

[Wapsie B]

13. But omg that was over a bj.

The safety of the entire free world was at stake over that. :sarcasm:

[nini]

6. What threeway balance of power?

:shrug: that's long gone.
I guess in their minds someone's blowjob warrants testimony but the biggest failure in national security ever doesn't.

[SeattleGirl]

7. That was my thought exactly, nini: WHAT threeway balance

of power. The only way there is going to be a balance of power again is if the Dems take back at least the house, if not the senate too.

[philosophie_en_rose]

8. I see the argument and it's bunk.

The issue is whether testifying under oath diminishes the separate power of the Executive Branch. However, the real issue is whether Bush wouldn't simply volunteer to tell the truth instead of hiding his incompetency behind the separation of powers.

Bush can testify under oath without setting a precedent. He is the one that sets the precedent by refusing to be truthful without coercion.

[billyskank]

9. So "separation of powers" means the president can commit any crime

and not be called on it? :shrug:

[ghostsofgiants]

10. Interestingly, one of the major issues in Watergate was...

"Is the president above the law?"

We all know how that turned out.

[billyskank]

11. THEN, the answer was no. TODAY, apparently it is yes.

:(

[petronius]

12. The freeper has a bit of a point

I think it would be a bad thing if the president could be summoned by congress and forced to testify under oath. However, he has constructed a straw man here - it is not a question of the executive being summoned and compelled, but of the executive declining to voluntarily testify. Had the president chosen to testify, it would not have set a precedent of compulsion; as Congress never made any attempt to "compel". So his argument is bogus; Bush could perfectly well have chosen to testify without upsetting the division between the branches.