bozothedeathmachine
Muse
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2003
- Messages
- 649
Blago impeachment, unethical??
- Thread starter Gangularis
- Start date
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- Tags
- rod blagojevich
davefoc
Philosopher
I don't think it's a coincidence that Nixon's resignation and Blago's successful impeachment both involved audio recordings.
The decision to remove a governor or a president from office is primarily political. It is essentially impossible unless both parties agree on it and the leader's party in almost all situations will rally around the leader to block the removal from office.
It is only when the party of the leader judges that continued support for the leader will damage them severely that they go against their partisan instincts and turn on the guy. And there are almost no circumstances where this happens. Partisanship is deeply ingrained in the thought process of politicians and they will spin, and distort and deny forever if there is a way to find the slightest plausibility for their obfuscations.
The only time forced removal from office is likely to happen is when the leader happens to have been recorded conspiring to do overtly illegal and unethical stuff. In all other situations the combination of the leader's control of the investigation mechanisms and the pork for the legislators districts and the party's financial resources and other difficulties in mounting real investigations of the leader make impeachment that will lead to removal a non-starter (Clinton's impeachment was a completely political action taken with the near certain knowledge on the part of the Republicans that he would not be removed from office).
I am not sure the system can be improved. In practice it works very poorly in that it is so unlikely to provide much constraint on a leader that is seriously corrupt or inept. Bush or his close cohorts engaged in illegal/unethical activities that completely eclipsed anything that Nixon ever dreamed of. Despite this Bush never came close to impeachment for the simple reason that no audio tape of him plotting illegal stuff ever surfaced and he was able to use his power to shut down any serious congressional legal investigations of his office if they showed any chance of turning up damaging stuff that might have gone to him or Cheney.
So for practical purposes, far and away the best hope of the electorate is that they elect leaders with integrity and competence because when they don't impeachment or anything else is not likely to save them.
The decision to remove a governor or a president from office is primarily political. It is essentially impossible unless both parties agree on it and the leader's party in almost all situations will rally around the leader to block the removal from office.
It is only when the party of the leader judges that continued support for the leader will damage them severely that they go against their partisan instincts and turn on the guy. And there are almost no circumstances where this happens. Partisanship is deeply ingrained in the thought process of politicians and they will spin, and distort and deny forever if there is a way to find the slightest plausibility for their obfuscations.
The only time forced removal from office is likely to happen is when the leader happens to have been recorded conspiring to do overtly illegal and unethical stuff. In all other situations the combination of the leader's control of the investigation mechanisms and the pork for the legislators districts and the party's financial resources and other difficulties in mounting real investigations of the leader make impeachment that will lead to removal a non-starter (Clinton's impeachment was a completely political action taken with the near certain knowledge on the part of the Republicans that he would not be removed from office).
I am not sure the system can be improved. In practice it works very poorly in that it is so unlikely to provide much constraint on a leader that is seriously corrupt or inept. Bush or his close cohorts engaged in illegal/unethical activities that completely eclipsed anything that Nixon ever dreamed of. Despite this Bush never came close to impeachment for the simple reason that no audio tape of him plotting illegal stuff ever surfaced and he was able to use his power to shut down any serious congressional legal investigations of his office if they showed any chance of turning up damaging stuff that might have gone to him or Cheney.
So for practical purposes, far and away the best hope of the electorate is that they elect leaders with integrity and competence because when they don't impeachment or anything else is not likely to save them.