"No Take-Home Swag: Stripping Bush and Cheney of Retirement Perks!" --Huff Post

(It might be the only thing we have left that we can do since Impeachment/Investigation is "Off the Table." :shrug:

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No Take-Home Swag: Stripping Bush and Cheney of Retirement Perks
by Jackson Williams

Last summer, a USA Today-Gallup poll found 36% of Americans thought Congress should impeach George W. Bush. Even more wanted Dick Cheney's head. Despite fluctuating numbers for several years, no serious movement to forcibly remove them from office ever caught fire. The simple fact is that this administration effectively ran out the clock on impeachment at least a year ago. That option is long gone.

Yet the shoes just keep on dropping!

Ron Suskind's new book The Way Of The World shows conclusively that the White House ordered a fake, backdated letter to "prove" that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was connected to al Qaeda. First we're lied into war, then false evidence is contrived to fool us, and Suskind's proof comes from no less than former high-ranking CIA officials who are named and on tape. This news is simultaneously beyond the pale and not shocking at all, which is the odd place we find ourselves after seven and a half years.

Richard Nixon's paranoia led him to spy on his enemies and he ultimately resigned, the only president in history to do so. Only a pardon by his vice-presidential successor averted criminal indictment. The Bush/Cheney duo, however, is a completely different animal, making "Tricky Dick" come off as a mere piker.

Therefore, something must be done, but what? Filing charges after Bush leaves office is possible but problematic because the Constitution lacks any guidance. The Supreme Court, which forced W on us in the first place, ruled in 1982 that ex-presidents do have "damages immunity" for official, on-the-job acts. As for lying, Bush never testified under oath about anything, not even when he was interviewed by federal prosecutors investigating the leak of a covert CIA officer's name.

More importantly, mounting a criminal case could take years. It would freeze the country in the partisanship of the past when an Obama administration wants to move briskly into the future. We may be better off with Crawford, Texas in our rear-view mirror.

Still, there's a hell of a mess left behind, so here's a workable solution: no swag bag on their way out the door.

No post-presidential emolument of any kind. No lifetime salary (currently $200K annually), no multi-million dollar office budget to ante up every year, nothing to help build the Bush presidential library. Not a dime of taxpayer money, period, other than the necessary security detail.

This crowd is super wealthy; they won't end up on desolation row. But such a response will shout for the record -- officially and forever -- that in this country you can't walk away unscathed after such high office malfeasance.

After all, Nixon suffered greatly for his deeds in office. Bill Clinton endured impeachment over a non-criminal dalliance with an intern. Are Bush and Cheney destined to suffer zero indignity? Whistling arm-in-arm into the night as the camera fades, like the final scene from Casablanca? It sure seems that way, unless we insist on some sort of justice.

Congress sets salaries and retirement benefits. There were no presidential pensions until 1958, so they're hardly sacred. Nothing precludes withholding them as punishment, either, so any piece of legislation aimed at the current occupant would doubtless be constitutional. There's no precedent for it, but there's certainly precedent for considering it. There was chatter when Nixon left office in shame, and congressional Republicans floated the idea in the late 90's against Clinton.

Let's strip Bush and Cheney of our hard-earned tax dollars, without gloat or bloodlust, then quickly move on.

It's the least we can do. They've more than earned it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/no-take-home-swag-strippi_b_118314.html?view=print

out of the Oval Office. We'll never hear the end of it if he doesn't. He's going to want it for his heroic library's heroic facsimile of his heroic Oval Office.

left that we can do. But, it would be important to still have that option...even if it seems small.