In order to restore confidence and accountability in the union, we need to introduce a concise and specific resolution calling for the
censure of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Follow me below the fold for a poll, and discuss in the comments below.
Thanks in advance for commendation and tips.
M.
It should be largely based on
Sen. Feingold's bold
resolution of March 13th, 2006 which states:
"The President's wrongdoing demands a response. And not just a response that prevents wrongdoing in the future, but a response that passes judgment on what has happened. We in the Congress bear the responsibility to check a President who has violated the law, who continues to violate the law, and who has not been held accountable for his actions.
Passing a resolution to censure the President is a way to hold this President accountable. A resolution of censure is a time-honored means for the Congress to express the most serious disapproval possible, short of impeachment, of the Executive's conduct. It is different than passing a law to make clear that certain conduct is impermissible or to cut off funding for certain activities. Both of those alternatives are ways for Congress to affect future action. But when the President acts illegally, he should be formally rebuked. He should be censured.
The founders anticipated abuses of executive power by creating a balance of powers in the Constitution. Supporting and defending the Constitution, as we have taken an oath to do, require us to preserve that balance, and to have the will to act. We must meet a serious transgression by the President with a serious response. We must work, as the founders urged us in Federalist Number 51, to control the abuses of government.
The Constitution looks to the Congress to right the balance of power. The American people look to us to take action, to speak out, with one clear voice, against wrongdoing by the President of the United States. In our system of government, no one, not even the President, is above the law."
The new resolution should also focus on the recommendations from Rep. Conyers exhaustive report on the constitutional crisis, (cross-posted @ Huff Post):
I am hopeful that compiling all of these events of the last few years will help wake all of us up to the gravity of these matters and the cumulative damage to our country.
The American people have paid the price for this strategy of deception followed by, in the words of one anonymous Republican official, "slime and defend." We have paid with the lives of more than 2,500 of our sons and daughters in uniform and in hundreds of billions of dollars of our taxes.
The Administration also appears to have used the war on terror as an excuse to eviscerate the basic protections afforded to us in the Constitution. There have been warrantless wiretaps of law-abiding Americans, in clear contravention of federal law, not to mention the creation of a huge unchecked database of the phone records of innocent Americans.
All the while, the Republican Congress sits idly by. Rather than performing its constitutional duty as a co-equal branch, it has chosen to stymie any and all efforts at oversight. After six long years of deceptions, attacks and yes, outright lies, I am convinced the American people have had enough.
We have all had enough, but what a sour taste it would leave in the mouths of libertarians, democrats, independents and patriots alike, if the newly minted democratic branch of government were to turn a blind eye to the previous 6 years, it would be in effect an endorsement of the policies and practices of the Bush Administration.
We cannot let this stand in the books as the opening chapter of 21st century history.
Thoughts?