Reply #59: Bush isn't the first President to think he's above the law and get away with it... [View All]

Remember Nixon's impeachment was about the coverup of a petty crime. It wasn't related to his official duties as President, despite the fact that he committed horrible abuses in that regard as well.

Crimes in the American Peoples' minds are committed by ordinary people. If the President commits an ordinary crime, they see the need to remove the President from office.

An abuse of power is different than a crime and isn't seen as a crimes. Only government officials can commit abuses of power, ordinary people cannot. Thus far Presidents have been getting away abuses of power and not getting impeached since John Adams was in the White House.

Therefore we have two roads to impeachment. One, conduct more hearings and find a way to build a case that Bush and Cheney have committed an ordinary crime like say obstruction of justice. Two, overturn 200+ years of precedent that Presidents can't be removed from office for abusing power in conducting their official duties.

Just because we see illegally spying on American citizens as an impeachable offense, doesn't mean that everyone does. Wilson and Nixon, among others, did the same thing and got away without punishment. How do we build a case that Bush is different?

The fact is that the American People are more or less okay with the President being above the law, so long as they only break the law to "protect the country" and that opinion started long before Bush was inaugurated. We need to reverse that opinion before we can impeach them. Either that or we have to start looking for petty crimes.