http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2007/12/impeach-mukasey.htmlImpeach Mukasey -- or for God's sake, at least throw the punch
P.M. Carpenter
As I recall from my days of youthful delinquencies, when you're eyeball to eyeball with a nasty neighborhood troll, and you know beyond any reasonable doubt that he's about to rudely inflict some dominance, the most judicious thing you can do is to coldcock the s.o.b., then stand over his bleeding proboscis and crumpled frame and let him know that that was just a warning. In short, you must first get the menacing thug's attention. And reason won't work. Not as a first option.
I offer this experiential advice to the various chairs and ranking members of Congressional oversight committees who are now eyeball to eyeball with the newest Bushie troll on the block, Attorney General Michael Mukasey. You had best coldcock him now, while you have the chance. And that means moving to impeach his sexagenarian ass -- to get his attention, if nothing else.
snip//
The exercise of contemporary executive-privilege assertions began innocently and nobly enough. Its origins lie in the 1950s, when that slimeball of a senator Joseph McCarthy was snooping anywhere and everywhere, witchhunting for slippery commies. He chewed up executive-branch personnel for kicks, abusing the hell out of them before his committee and demanding their papers on whims. President Eisenhower finally declared that enough was enough. He instructed his attorney general to find some legal justification -- however creative -- to put a stop to it. His a.g. did, and to a stop, it came -- along with McCarthy's career.
But, like all presidential powers left unfettered, the one of executive privilege has grown monstrously over the decades. It is now used, quite simply and blatantly, to obstruct justice -- to crush even incipient Congressional efforts in its proper Constitutional role of investigation and oversight. And Republicans under the Bush administration are getting as worried about it as Democrats. They smell a Democratic president in a year, and envision the same presidential tactics used against -- at some possible point -- a Republican-led Congress.
Hence rolling back the privilege is, for now, of keen bipartisan interest. But given that we're talking the abominably thuggish Bush administration, Congress would have to coldcock it. A bill to impeach the attorney general for obstruction of justice would be a nice touch -- one that could engender bipartisan support, and one that just might get the administration's attention.
Now, would Democrats commit such an intelligent act of self-defense -- even given a push from the notably meekless across the aisle? Ah, there's the rub.
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