Unimpeachable Journalism
If you didn’t catch last night’s *Bill Moyers Journal* on PBS, you might want to take a look at this video segment:
BILL MOYERS JOURNAL explores the talk of impeachment with Constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Bill Clinton, and THE NATION’s John Nichols, author of THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT
It’s over twenty minutes long, but worth the time. It’s a discussion of the Founding Fathers’ rationale for the *concept* of impeachment, not just its applicability to current office-holders. My jaw dropped when I heard what Bruce Fein — a well-respected legal scholar, but also a bona fide arch-conservative — had to say on the topic. You just don’t get this kind of discussion anywhere else in the media.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:40 PM
Direct link to whole video.
July 14th, 2007 at 6:12 PM
I will check it out. And, I hope this is okay to tell you my site now has 5 weekly serials if you want to stop by and hang out…
July 14th, 2007 at 7:21 PM
No, we don’t get that kind of talk anywhere else in broadcast television news.
Many ideas were presented, none of them new, but most of them needed to be re-presented to an American public that seems to have forgotten who should really be calling the shots in this country. Us, the people.
Three or four years ago, I would have been more surprised by a conservative’s visceral disgust with the Bush administration, but I think more and more conservatives have felt at least disappointed by Bush’s decisions and actions, and some feel outright betrayed.
Personally, while I’ve thought that impeachment is deserved, I had dismissed it with “Oh, well, they’ll be gone in a year and a half, and it’d take that long to get it done.” Moyers’ two guests have convinced that it should be done, no matter how long they’ve got.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/transcripts/index.html
July 14th, 2007 at 10:11 PM
um, that URL I posted was a direct link to the whole video, but for some reason wordpress stripped out an underscore after the word ‘video’. Just hit “Watch the Video” on this page if you want to see the whole thing:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/profile.html
July 15th, 2007 at 12:46 AM
Steve, please feel free to delee this from your blog if it causes any difficulties. It’s your space and I don’t want to offend.
But, this is why I just can’t get ahead as a lawyer and why I will never win an election as judge, if they ever actually hold one. I agree with John Nichols 100%. And most lawyers and most Americans — sadly — don’t.
There isn’t any point to having a law if you aren’t going to follow it. And WHAT’s WORSE is when the people who have SWORN to not only follow the law but enforce it, break it — thumb their noses at it — we have a serious problem.
I’m either the most conservative Democrat or the most liberal Republican who has ever been born. But either way, I think the last two presidents have been WORSE than NIxon, and I never dreamed that was possible.
July 15th, 2007 at 6:12 AM
Bgztl wrote: when the people who have SWORN to not only follow the law but enforce it, break it — thumb their noses at it — we have a serious problem..”
And that, indeed, is the problem. Don’t feel alone. You might want to check out http://www.bcimpeach.com, which is run by some activist lawyers I am fortunate enough to hang out with from time to time. Feel free to email me directly if you want to be put in touch with folks like this. You can reach me at beau ( a t ) oblios-cap ( d o t ) com, or though the webpage linked to my name on this entry.
Peace, and keep the faith!
July 15th, 2007 at 2:51 PM
Just read the book Vice, which shows Cheney for what he is: the power behind the throne, withholding information from the public that pays him, setting up no-bid Halliburton deals, revealing the name of a covert CIA officer (and, according to Newsweek, pressuring Bush to commute the sentence of the staffer who lied to protect him), displaying total contempt for Congress and the Constitution, pushing us into our endless war…
We are in hardly any danger from terroism compared to the danger we’re in from him.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:11 AM
Mark Evanier was also talking about this on his blog (and for any other lurkers/posters here who like Steve’s blog, they should also check out Evanier at http://www.newsfromme.com). I guess Steve is one of the many people that told Mark to check it out. I’ll have to see it after work and school tonight.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:38 AM
How appropriate that you posted that on Bastille Day.
July 16th, 2007 at 10:03 PM
Thanks for the tip beau. The link didn’t go anywhere for me, but I found the site at http://bcimpeach.com (without the www part of the address).
I think the chances of anyone in Congress having enough cojones to try impeachment are about slim or none, though. I think we should assume they either (a) don’t have ’em or (b) that the cold fear of Dick Cheney’s and Karl Rove’s hatchet men have made them all suffer from testicular atrophy.
July 17th, 2007 at 6:20 AM
Here’s a youtube clip of one of my associates at a recent impeachment rally, if anyone is so inclined: http://youtube.com/watch?v=NH0PvrEjnlE His name is Steve Rohde, he’s a Constitutional Law attorney and former ACLU of Southern California president.
I do so much political blogging that I honestly can’t wait for Steve’s next comics based post. 😉
“The [living] caterpillar is two metamorphoses behind the [deceased] butterfly on the path to eternal life.”
Steve, did you think much about the impact you might have on 11 year old minds when you wrote stuff like that? And in a complete twist of gestalt, didn’t the collective unconscious of the time include works of Richard Bach which might have in some ways prefigured or acted as a substrate for the invention of Howard?
July 17th, 2007 at 7:48 AM
Sad. I’m convinced that impeachment is necessary, not for Cheney and Bush, but for the benefit of the country. And I’m even MORE convinced that impeachment won’t come because Congress will just “run out the clock”.
July 17th, 2007 at 7:08 PM
howard the duck for doom 3.
haven’t played it yet. if it sucks i’ll tell yah so that you can sic marvel on them. 😉
July 17th, 2007 at 7:08 PM
doh. fergot the link.
July 17th, 2007 at 8:55 PM
BAH. that thing sucks so hard that it ain’t even worth the effort. playing it is punishment enough for any copyright infringement.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:35 AM
So, now I finaly was able to watch that video as well and have to say that I understand american democracy a bit better now. Up untill now the goverment in the U.S. was for me more like a constituional monarchy and not a REAL democracy but now I know that it just works VERY different from the system we have here in germany.
The german chancelor just has very few powers invested in him that’s because of what happend nearly 70 years ago. I still like our system better but I understand the U.S. system a lot better now.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:15 AM
Will have something to say about comics again soon. I’ve been in a prolonged wrestling match with a script.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:00 PM
Do you need someone to run in and whack it with a steel folding chair? Or is this more of a sleeper hold situation?