Well lo and behold, finally, a man of no small pedigree with the cajones to ask the right question! And I agree. McCain was a prisoner of war for 5 and a half years, but did his incarceration allow him special insight into the future world of 2008?

Did the Founders never anticipate taking impeachment off the table for political reasons?  

Hamilton, in Federalist no. 65, speaks indirectly to this issue in addressing the role of the Senate in trying, as opposed to preferring charges of impeachment (by the House), but similar considerations hold in both houses:

The Wall Street Journal's Bob Davis, reporting on an interview with John McCain focused on his economic platform, does a nice job highlighting multiple inconsistencies -- not to say an overall incoherence -- without any explicit diss. Repeatedly, Davis presents McCain's claims against an understated backdrop of inconvenient truths.

Our media love to tell us just how much Americans are pining for an independent presidential candidacy, and specifically, just how much potential support there is for a Mike Bloomberg for President campaign. But as I show in my new nationally syndicated newspaper column out today, both assertions are fiction. That begs a simple question - one that ties into my upcoming book: Why is the Establishment so adamant about jamming a candidacy down our throat that we so clearly do not want? Why is the political elite so insistent on crushing what has become a full-fledged uprising in 2008?

In previous essays, I have examined the current political climate, compared it with past times of dramatic partisan changes in the country, and suggested that the 2008 election could be a transforming election similar in nature, even if not in the magnitude of the victory, to the 1932 election which brought Franklin Roosevelt in to the White House and huge Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress.  For many, their first reaction is to scoff.  Such a huge Democratic win, following the big wins in 2006, would certainly be against recent trends.  Since the death of FDR, only once when a party posted a net gain of more than 15 Congressional seats did they not lose seats in the next election.  In 1974, the Watergate scandal helped propel the Democrats to a net gain of 49 seats.  In 1976, they gained an additional net of 1 seat, giving them 292 seats; the only time any party has had more seats in Congress was from 1933 through 1939, when the Democrats had over 300 seats.  However, as I showed in my first essay, in 2006 and going in to 2008, there are many exceptions to "rules" of election trends since 1946, which isn't odd considering the expectations derive from the results of just 30 federal elections.  If one looks at election-to-election variances as mostly the swings of a short pendulum, it makes sense to expect a "correction" in 2008, or at least not a second straight big gain by Democratic.  But the underlying terrain for 2008 is far more favorable than one would expect under the conventional assumptions of election trends, especially if the tottering economy and growing credit and housing problems continue to get worse.  We are not dealing with a pendulum, we're dealing with a strong and long-term movement of the electorate.

In my second essay, I showed plenty of evidence to suggest that almost all the partisan and campaign/operational advantages currently favor the Democrats.  The Democrats' current advantages in registration trends, campaign finances, seats without incumbents running for reelection, polling, desire for change and candidate recruitment may, but next fall, be unprecedented, at least in the era since the expansion of the federal government and the movement from rural to urban and suburban areas that occurred during the New Deal.  Literally, there is just about no good news for the Republican party.

Many readers of Daily Kos may think the Democrats are not capitalizing on their current advantages to maximize the opportunity I believe we have in 2008.  There is some merit to that argument, although as I will show in a future essay, it's likely that we will have big gains regardless of whether the Democrats in Congress and those running for President are bold or timid.  There certainly is a precedent for such an occurrence; the 72nd Congress (1931-1933), with it's new and extremely narrow Democratic majorities in both chambers accomplished very little, pursed no bold strategies, and provided few hints of the transforming political and policy revolution of the New Deal.  This unimaginative and low-risk opposition to Hoover, by the way, did not face the resolute obstructionism of the current Republican party, as several liberal Republicans, especially in the Senate, joined with the Democrats in trying to set a new direction for the country in opposition to Hoover's reluctance to engage the federal government as a positive agent for change.  

In 1932, the Depression dominated American life in ways that none of our current issues do.  The Republican failure to deal with that catastrophe was the dominant, nearly exclusive reason for the Democrats' huge victory in 1932.  Fortunately, no single issue dominates our lives the way the Depression did in 1932.  Nevertheless, the primary factor in the Democrats current standing is the deep dissatisfaction with the presidency of George W Bush.  Roughly two-thirds of Americans disapprove of his prosecution of the war in Iraq and his failure to change course and pursue a responsible withdrawal of American troops.  Republican corruption and Republican incompetence—exposed in the national embarrassment that was the reaction to the Katrina disaster on the Gulf Coast—also contribute to the current political environment.  There are also inherent cultural, social, political and ideological contradictions with the leadership and activist core of the Republican party which threatens to open huge rifts within the party and it's electoral coalition.  I will address this component of the political environment in coming weeks.  

Even more than in 1932, however, long term demographic and ideological trends have been favoring Democrats.  In 2000, the combined vote totals for Al Gore and Ralph Nader were over 51%, only the second time since 1964 that the loosely defined "liberal" alternatives exceed 50% of the popular vote.  It was the third straight election that the Democrat won the popular vote, and in the Summer of 2001, George W. Bush was as weak a newly-elected president as we had seen in decades.  One can persuasively argue that were it not for the distorting effect of 9-11 and the ability of Karl Rove and company to exploit fear, especially among key sub-groups of independents and married and middle and working-class women, the election that Kathryn Harris and the Supreme Court stole from Al Gore would have been reversed in 2004 and George W. Bush would have repeated the pattern of previous Presidents who had lost the popular vote and not been returned for a second term.

In 2002, John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published The Emerging Democratic Majority.  Some observers believed their book presaged a Democratic victory in 2004.  It did not.  However, it did describe several long-term trends that strongly favor Democrats.  In 2006, they revisited their thesis, looking at the wave that that washed over Republicans at every level:

This diary is a response to Kagro X's front-page post, What's up with Congress, anyway?, about the Bush administrations anti-democratic abuse of veto power. Kagro examined the issue from a separation of powers stance on the FISA bill.

I want to take it one step further and examine the problem from the spirit of representative democracy (i.e., are We the People getting what We want?) and focus on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which has been issued a veto threat by the president. It's a less sticky issue that's easier to poll than FISA legislation and one that I've followed closely this year.

And I'm using it as an example because I'm one of those Radical Homosexual Activists you hear so much about. But even us confirmed RHA's want democracy to work.

First, to understand the abuse on our democracy of Bush's peculiar veto, let's talk about why we even have a veto in the first place and a 2/3 requirement for overturning it.

Alexander Hamilton explains the need for a veto in the Federalist Papers:

In 1835, when the City of Chicago was incorporated, there were only 150 inhabitants, most of whose livelihoods depended upon trading with the Native Americans in the area. There were no tree-lined boulevards, no neatly laid out grid of paved streets, no pleasant lakeside parks. A few dozen primitive huts and warehouses clung ignominiously to the mud banks of a slow, sluggish, shallow river emptying into Lake Michigan. In winter, fierce Artic winds screeched south unobstructed over the lake and slammed into the little settlement, dumping deep slatherings of snow and sub-zero temperatures that often made venturing outdoors a peril to limb and life. In the summer a merciless sun would bake alive anyone not eaten alive by equally merciless mosquitoes.

Yet this precarious outpost of the American republic sat on one of the five most strategic points of North American geography, the control of which would determine the fate of the entire continent.

If you want to learn how to avoid more collapsing bridges, leap on over to the other side . . .

Cross-posted at ProgressiveHistorians.com

One of the favorite GOP talking points concerning high-level political appointees is that the President submits names, and the Congress approves them.  It's that simple.

This line of reasoning is what some conservatives might call "revisionist history".  The implication is that Congress is intended simply as a rubberstamp of Executive appointments.  Oh how the Framers must quake in their graves!

First let us take a look at the relevant section of the Constitution.  What does the language explicitly state:

by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, [The Executive] shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

First thing first. I have not written a diary before and technically I still haven't. This diary is a reprint of a Big Tent Democrats entry from talkleft. It's a topic I felt should be discussed in a larger forum so here it goes.

If by proxy giving BTD two diaries today upsets someone, get pissed at me. Otherwise, engage in the debate and discussion. If BTD cares to monitor this diary that will be his choice. I'll be in and out.

Below the fold, with his permission, will be the voice of BTD.

To liberals and libertarians, the question of freedom is not even a question. We not only take our freedoms for granted, but we also take for granted that we have a fundamental right to take them for granted! We take for granted that all people have a fundamental right to personal and political freedom!

The American and French Revolutions were liberal and libertarian, and so were the fights against slavery and for suffragism. Liberals and libertarians continue to fight for the freedom of the GBLT community, and for oppressed minorities everywhere. Many of us dream of a world free of warfare, hunger, and deprivation. Many of us dream of a world where everyone has a birthright to peace, justice, and opportunity, and where the human community never fails to provide compassion and support to those in times of crisis. We dream large because our ideals are large. Those who ridicule us as unrealistic would have also ridiculed those in the Eighteenth Century who dreamed of freedom from despotic monarchies. We so take for granted the freedoms we have that we often forget the intrepid efforts of those who had to fight to win them for us.

In Unitary Moonbat's Impeachment History diary and thread, both too little and too much is said. The too little is about the POLITICS of the impeachment process. The too much is the selling of impeachment as the bulwark against Presidential abuse of power:

Henry's objections were numerous, but one of them was that Madison had created a president who could too easily become an absolute monarch or a tyrant. . . . Madison's reply was essentially what was quoted above. He believed it was impossible for a president to behave as Henry feared one might, because Congress held the power to impeach the executive and remove him from office if necessary . . .

But this is simply not a correct reading of the Federalist Papers or the Constitution. I'll explain why on the flip.

It is, perhaps, the nature of those who study the past to be slightly behind the times – by definition, it’s tough to get an historical perspective on current events – but as your self-appointed resident historiorantologist, I felt an obligation to dig up a few buried blockquotes and some misplaced pieces of context on the matter of presidential impeachment nonetheless.  What I uncovered reaffirmed and strengthened my personal opinion that it is our Constitutional duty to see the current resident of the White House impeached - and in the finest tradition of throwing gasoline on a dying fire, I’d like to share my findings with you all tonight.  

So join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, for a brief look at the origins of impeachment.  Presented also for the consideration of our People-Powered community will be the opinions of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Joseph Story, and Barbara Jordan, who have much to say regarding what the 110th Congress ought to do...

After the unconditional surrender at Yorktown (Nov 7th), the time will come for the netroots to insist that America needs to FIX accountability, INSTATE justice, and REPAIR a serious flaw in the US Constitution.

Although I have not addressed the subject much, I now believe the time to start talking about repairing the Constitution has come. The groundwork is in place through the debates found in the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers. They continue the work of the founding fathers Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton et al. They understood that unresolved issues or unforeseen forces may appear long after their lives have expired. They left open the door that perhaps the balance they struck would not be perfect. That perhaps, these unresolved debates would find answers with time. Time that, only through their written letters and debates, could they reach across.

We have only a little more than two weeks to nail down our victories in the November elections. It is definitely time to bring in the A-team to finish off the Republicans who still stand in our way. Unfortunately, many of our candidates seem to think that our nation's founders are a bunch of irrelevant old white guys with nothing to say about our current crises. In fact, the great men who created our nation were progressives who have been hijacked by the other side. It is perfectly clear what they would have to say about Bush's dissent into fascism. But don't take my word for it, if you did this would just be another ranting blog. Instead, go to the nearest bookstore and get hold of Richard Brookhiser's book What Would the Founders Do? You might want to do that even before proceeding to the flip side.

"A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained." -- Federal Paper No. 19 - Madison (with Hamilton)

 "The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government." --Thomas Jefferson GOOD GOVERNMENT

Good government and the care of human life and happiness are American values. The legalization of all things hemp and stem cell research are two means by which "that object can be best attained."

In Federalist Paper No. 8, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

"Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates."

Hamilton's message is clear. To preserve our liberties, Democrats will have to convince the American people that they are the party of both liberty and security. To be the party of both liberty and security they will have to become the party of energy independence from foreign fuel sources.

Someone at The New Republic named Lee Siegel, writing a column called "Lee Siegel on Culture" for the magazine's online manifestation, seems to know nothing about the blogosphere (his subject in his most recent post), American culture (according to his title, his general topic), or American history.  Strangely enough, TNR touts him as a "senior editor."

Where do they get these guys?

      I've been reading the dairies about Armando's outing, not a nice thing.  There is also the meme that is constantly floated that "those anonymous bloggers are always hiding behind their screen names".   And, that by hiding behind these names they are somehow invalid, their views the stuff of asylums.   What the attackers are doing, the outers, the critics are engaging in -- is nothing less than an assault on the grand tradition of American discourse.  

    Alexander Hamilton, considered the first of the conservatives, and founding father, is looked upon by the right wing as we look on Jefferson.  

His Screen Name was Publius.