via Talking Points Memo, here’s a clip from the recent episode of Bill Moyers Journal, with Moyers talking to conservative attorney Bruce Fein, Associate Deputy Attorney General under President Reagan, and The Nation’s John Nichols.
(You can see the full show at PBS.org)
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“[Bush's crimes are more] worrisome than Clinton’s because he is seeking more institutionally to cripple checks and balances and the authority of Congress and the judiciary to superintend his assertions of power. He has claimed the authority to tell Congress they don’t have any right to know what he’s doing with relation to spying on American citizens, using that information in any way that he wants in contradiction to a federal statute called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. He’s claimed authority to say he can kidnap people, throw them into dungeons abroad, dump them out into Siberia without any political or legal accountability. These are standards that are totally anathema to a democratic society devoted to the rule of law.”

Rule of Law is key to a democratic society.

As my favorite Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis, wrote in Olmstead v. United States, “If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy.”

Again, this really shouldn’t be a partisan issue. What kind of society are we when we allow the President, Vice President, Attorney General, or anyone to twist the constitution into a pretzel?

Who are we as a society when we allow petty officials such as the Greece Town board or Maggie Brooks to freely disobey the 1st Amendment to Constitution of the United States of America?

BILL MOYERS: It seems to me the country is ahead of Congress on this. How do you explain all this talk about impeachment today out across the country?

JOHN NICHOLS: People don’t want to let this go. They do not accept Nancy Pelosi’s argument that impeachment is, quote/unquote, off the table. Because I guess maybe they’re glad she didn’t take some other part of the Constitution off the table like freedom of speech. But they also don’t accept the argument that, oh, well, there’s a presidential campaign going on. So let’s just hold our breath till Bush and Cheney get done.

When I go out across America, what I hear is something that’s really very refreshing and very hopeful about this country. An awfully lot of Americans understand what Thomas Jefferson understood. And that is that the election of a president does not make him a king for four years. That if a president sins against the Constitution– and does damage to the republic, the people have a right in an organic process to demand of their House of Representatives, the branch of government closest to the people, that it act to remove that president. And I think that sentiment is afoot in the land.

BILL MOYERS: This is the first time I’ve heard talk of impeaching both a president and a vice-president. I mean, this– as you saw in that poll, more people want to impeach Dick Cheney than George Bush. What’s going on?

BRUCE FEIN: Well, this is an unusual affair of president/vice-president, where the vice-president is de facto president most of the time. And that’s why most of people recognize that these decisions, especially when it comes to overreaching with executive power, are the product of Dick Cheney and his aide, David Addington, not George Bush and Alberto Gonzalez or Harriet Miers, who don’t have the cerebral capacity to think of these devilish ideas. And for that reason, they equate the administration more with Dick Cheney than with George Bush.

And here’s another money quote:

BRUCE FEIN: Yeah, of course, the– difference is one thing to claim that, you know, Gulf of Tonkin resolution, was too broadly drafted. But we’re talking about assertions of power that affect the individual liberties of every American citizen. Opening your mail, your e-mails, your phone calls. Breaking and entering your homes. Creating a pall of fear and intimidation if you say anything against the president you may find retaliation very quickly. We’re claiming he’s setting precedents that will lie around like loaded weapons anytime there’s another 9/11.

Right now the victims are people whose names most Americans can’t pronounce. And that’s why they’re not so concerned. They will start being Browns and Jones and Smiths. And that precedent is being set right now. And one of the dangers that I see is it’s not just President Bush but the presidential candidates for 2008 aren’t standing up and saying “If I’m president, I won’t imitate George Bush.” That shows me that this is a far deeper problem than Mr. Bush and Cheney.

Let’s repeat that:

…one of the dangers that I see is it’s not just President Bush but the presidential candidates for 2008 aren’t standing up and saying “If I’m president, I won’t imitate George Bush.” That shows me that this is a far deeper problem than Mr. Bush and Cheney.