Here's a question that should be asked of all Presidential candidates:

[AndyA]

How many of the checks and balances that Bush has rolled back or done away with do you intend to maintain, and what steps are you going to take, if any, to scale back the executive power Bush gave himself while in office?

Every single candidate should go on record firmly and uncategorically on this issue. Their answer will reveal much about what we can expect from them in the White House.

[TwilightGardener]

1. Obama has said that he will review all the exec orders/signing statements and

roll back the ones that are unconstitutional.

[woodsprite]

3. I can't see Hillary answering that in a like or better manner. n/t

[AndyA]

4. Well, that doesn't comfort me much because Obama is on record as stating

that Bush and Cheney haven't committed any grave breaches of authority while in office, and therefore is against impeachment.

Lying to start a war isn't a grave breach of authority?

Outing a covert CIA agent during a time of war isn't a grave breach of authority?

Illegal spying and then lying about it to everyone isn't a grave breach of authority?

I'd like to know what the hell Barack Obama thinks a grave breach of authority is! Any Obama supporters want to take that one on?

Obama, a Harvard law school graduate and former lecturer on constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said impeachment should not be used as a standard political tool.

"I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breaches, and intentional breaches of the president's authority," he said.

"I believe if we began impeachment proceedings we will be engulfed in more of the politics that has made Washington dysfunction," he added. "We would once again, rather than attending to the people's business, be engaged in a tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, non-stop circus."

[TwilightGardener]

5. None of the candidates were going to pursue impeachment. It just

wasn't going to happen. That looks like fringey grandstanding, and would immediately render one's campaign a joke.

[AndyA]

6. Which is exactly why Obama's promise of change we can believe in,

real change, blah blah blah is all a lie.

He isn't going to change anything.

He has knowledge of grave breaches of authority, and he's going to do zip about it. That's not a leader. That's a coward.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Well, I think you have unrealistic expectations of him. Hillary isn't pursuing

Bush either, of course (in fact, Bush said he "trusts her with his legacy"), nor would Edwards, but only Obama doesn't meet your exacting standards? None of the candidates are perfect, or pure in ideology or principle--they are politicians who want to get elected, not be marginalized and laughed at by making it their mission to pursue impeachment, when the House of Representatives and Pelosi have already ruled out the possibilty of pursuing it. Write in Kucinich, then, if it makes you happy. Obama has said what he intends to do about the Exec. Branch excesses, that's good enough for me.

[AndyA]

9. I guess after 7 plus years of Bush, everyone has just lowered their

expectations so much that almost anyone breathing will be good enough.

Pathetic. :eyes:

[0007]

2. A cold day in hell when that happens. It is a good idea though

[Benhurst]

7. A great idea. But I fear none of them are going to answer such questions.

Once rights are lost, they are rarely restored.