Democrats had the means (a majority in both Houses, committee chairmanships, investigative powers) to launch one investigation after another of George W. Bush and his cronies between 2007 and the end of 2008, on violating the Constitution, not to mention international law, and even to pursue impeachment legislation. But they showed remarkable restraint.
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan made the case that Bush "deliberately deceived" the country about the reasons for going to war in Iraq.
Andrew Sullivan:
He charged that Bush and Cheney:
They seized countless individuals with no trials and no hearings. They tortured dozens to death. They subjected many more to some of the worst psychological torture techniques devised by Communist totalitarians and the worst physical suffering devised by the Gestapo. They crossed lines no American president had ever crossed before. They withdrew the US from the Geneva Conventions - and did so secretly. They tapped American's phones without warrants, and forced many of their randomly grabbed prisoners into the black hole of insanity. They set up secret sites in former Soviet gulags to torture their victims. They single-handedly devastated America's reputation for human rights and the rule of law in the minds of the vast majority of people in other Western democracies, let alone the developing world, let alone the millions of Muslims across the Middle East who now suspect that America is not really better than their own thugocracies, that America also tortures when it wants to, that the shining city on a hill is actually a place where men above the law can do anything they want to other human beings in their custody.
Despite these outrages, I'm glad the Democrats were able to restrain themselves in 2008 and didn't launch a partisan investigation against Bush the way that the Republicans did against Bill Clinton back in 1998. Impeaching and completely removing a President from office should be reserved for those rare occasions in history when the "high crimes and misdemeanors" are so obvious and egregious and elections are far enough off that the country can no longer endure the miscreant. And that removing the president will lead to something better. Dick Cheney would not have been better, and so you'd have a Constitutional crisis on your hands. It's important to maintain a sense of historical and political perspective, which the Democrats did in 2008. If they had pursued impeachment of Bush, it would have created a backlash and probably brought sympathy upon Bush.
At this stage, we can agree that Clinton probably lied under oath -- perjured himself -- about his sex life. But the Republicans lost all sense of historical perspective about it.
Presidents have frequently lied to the American people, but did not face impeachment and removal from office. There's evidence that George H. W. Bush lied under oath about Iran Contra (ie "I
was out of the loop"). Lots of evidence that many other presidents
lied. But they weren't placed under oath. What was unprecedented was
that Ken Starr had been appointed special prosecutor, and he zealously forced Clinton under oath, with his
statements (supposedly made before a secret grand jury) made
immediately public. Most people considered the matter (Clinton's personal sex life) immaterial to the kind of job he was doing as president.
The ironic part is that if the Republicans had shown more
restraint, hadn't over-played their hand, preaching about sexual
morality (while philandering in private), insisting on impeachment and
removal from office -- is that if they had simply quickly agreed with
Democrats to pass censure of Clinton, his popularity probably wouldn't have soared.
Prosecutors almost universally agree that they do not waste public
money prosecuting someone for perjury for lying about sex, esp. when
it's an ancillary issue.
Partisan investigations -- perceived by many as witch hunts -- no matter how righteous partisans may feel, do not generally reflect well on the political party pursuing them. Given the unpopularity of Bush in 2008, Democrats were smart to let sleeping dogs lie.
An impeachment investigation would probably have produced a backlash that hurt the Democrats' chances at the polls in November. Too bad Republicans weren't more reasonable back in 1998 -- their over-the-top pursuit of Clinton did produce a backlash, and they lost the mid-term elections that year.
What Clinton did was personally low and self-indulgent, and degrading to the presidency. But Paula Jones' claim of sexual harassment was not strong at all, and she could not have won her case on its merits (it was later dismissed). Clinton was disbarred for five years and fined something like $350,000. That was "justice" as far as I was concerned.
Irony of ironies: Looking back, I think it might have been better if the Democrats forced Clinton to resign. That might have happened if Republicans hadn't reacted in such a hyper-partisan manner, if they had worked in a more collaborative way with Democrats who were outraged by Clinton's conduct, but who did not believe it rose to the level of an impeachable offense.
With Al Gore running as an incumbent president in 2000, he almost certainly would have won election in his own right, and the country would have been spared the disaster of the Iraq war, and the disaster of George W. Bush's presidency.
But then, Gore might have been blamed for 9/11, he probably would have been a one-term president, and if he had won, Barack Obama would probably not be the 44th president of the United States, elected in a near landslide and bringing with him a dominantly Democratic Congress.
Oh, the ironies of history.
I just hope the price America pays for not prosecuting Bush and Cheney is not as great as the price we paid for the unwise prosecution and impeachment of Bill Clinton. It's quite possible that some future administration will presume that it can get away with crimes against the Constitution because Bush and Cheney did.
