Robert Dallek In Washington Post: "Ouster By The People"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/03/AR2007080301952.html

Ouster By the People

By Robert Dallek
Sunday, August 5, 2007; Page B07

Polls showing President Bush's approval ratings in the 20s and 30s and a New York Times survey last month reporting that people across the country are eager for an end to the current administration suggest that this nation has a problem it's going to have to live with for the next 17 months -- a failed presidency that won't reestablish its credibility with a national majority.

The political argument against Bush's continuing tenure is not frivolous. There are good reasons to see him as a failed president whose remaining time in office will be unproductive at best and destructive to the country's well-being at worst. But given the constitutional rules by which the presidency operates, there is no serious prospect of removing him from office.

A fine solution would be a Nixon-style resignation, but anyone who thinks that Bush and Vice President Cheney would give in to such a demand is dreaming. With no serious threat of impeachment looming, Bush and Cheney can afford to dismiss calls for their departure as the outcries of political extremists. Instead, the president, determined to stay the course, declares that his strategy in Iraq needs more time to work, that the many charges of abuse of power are unsubstantiated, and that, as with Harry Truman, who also lost his hold on the public in the last two years of his presidency, history will vindicate him.

It's enough to make people think about a constitutional amendment for removing a president other than by impeachment or because of incapacity, as is now provided for under the 25th Amendment.

Such an amendment would need to set a high bar for removal and include a process that would be the greatest possible expression of the popular will. This could best be achieved through a recall procedure beginning in the House and the Senate, where a 60 percent vote would be required in both chambers to initiate a national referendum that would be open to all citizens eligible to vote in state elections. The ballot would simply ask voters to say yes or no to removing the president and vice president from office immediately. Should a majority vote to recall both incumbents, the speaker of the House would succeed to the presidency and, under the provisions of the 25th Amendment, would choose a vice president, who would need to be confirmed by majorities in the House and the Senate.

- snip -

Robert Dallek is a historian the author most recently of "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power."

[AX10]

1. K & R!

[Rene]

2. Congress should restrict shrub's ability to pardon anyone - effective immediately

[Lindsey]

6. I don't think it's possible for them to do that. My understanding is

the pardon is a definite thing they get to do up to and during their last day in office. I'm waiting for the m'er/f'er to pardon Jeffrey Skilling (my brother work for Enron and lost just about everyting)on his last day. Believe me, I think Skilling probably has so much on */Darth Vadar that he agreed to spend a couple of years in jail and wait for his pardon so he wouldn't involve these thugs.

[djjimz]

3. If only...

Thank you for this.
Great article.

[Hissyspit]

7. Food for thought. Welcome to DU!

:patriot:

:toast:

[EST]

4. Interesting idea.

It wouldn't work in real life, but it certainly serves as measure of the country's pissed-offedness with this administration, the idiocy of groups of highly ideological people with unreal expectations, and, ancillarily, the republican party.

[Hubert Flottz]

5. K&R

[KoKo]

8. Seems he's doing very well with his low approval rating and lame duck failed P-residency.

though. He has a cowered Congress, a compliant media who still acts like he's got 90% and the damned best luck that anyone ever has had who has lived in the White House.

I'd say he's doing so well that we shouldn't pay attention to "nay-sayers" anymore. He's the king...the emperor...and "the Decider."

:sarcasm: but it appears more true that sarcastic...what i say given what we have seen. :shrug:

What Dallek is calling for is ridiculous. It would be harder than starting Impeachment Hearings which would allow witnesses to appear at hearings and testimony, under oath, with transcript to be taken with NO Executive Privilege coming in to play. BUT...we now know...that will never happen and neither will what Dallek says..

Thanks for the article, though! :hi: