Ed Huntress wrote:
"William Wixon" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
Bush and Cheney would be in jail by now.
But then, so would a high percentage of the US presidents in history.

Nixon, Reagan and Bush jr. for sure.
Ed Huntress and I had an extended conversation a while ago and his take
was
that it it's just bad to put Presidents in jail for stuff they do in
office.
He didn't really argue the merits, however. My point at the time was that
had Ford not Pardonned Nixon, Nixon might well have been tried and
convicted - thereby setting an example that his successors would have
heeded
regarding the law.

In the end, I concluded that both arguments have merit but having tried
the
former so often and gotten increasingly egrigious conduct, we ought to
have
a stab at the latter.
I think.
Maybe.


--
John R. Carroll


you'd think by the end (at least) of obama's term (if he makes it)
there'll be a vocal group falling all over themselves to put him in jail
huh? i wonder if this is the time enough people will agree that it's
better to put him (a black liberal rather than a white conservative) in
jail than not and make this thing happen. you know he's going to do
something bad, they all do/have, this time though people will probably
"get tough" on him (whereas in the past they let it slide).

b.w.

Any way you slice it, if you jail a president for something he did in
office, whether he's out of office or not, you're going to create a
Constitutional crisis. I don't mean a disagreement. I mean a crisis.

There is nothing in the Constitution that gives Congress or the courts any
power over the president, except for the power of impeachment. It's all a
matter of case law and it's never been significantly tested. The
counterargument is that it would be a violation of the separation of powers.

In fact, it can't be "tested." You can get a decision, but all it can do it
create a crisis.



So then there is someone who is above the law? If you can't hold a
president accountable for crimes he commits in office then he's above
the law. They do have a process for this but the problem is one of balls
and partisanship. Congressmen lack the balls to impeach and then convict
a president for a crime and then you have the president's party refusing
to follow the law due to their partisanship. Both mean the president
can't be touched. In my book it's a bad precedent. But in America we
still aren't sure that the president isn't really the king and so he
gets treated like the law applies to everyone but him. We ought to
convict a president and send him to the big house one of these days just
to teach the next ones a lesson. Unfortunately, we missed our chance.
The last guy and his VP were perfect candidates with their starting
illegal wars and costing so many people their lives. If those weren't
serious enough crimes I can't imagine what they would have to do to
deserve conviction? What they did actually made Nixon look like Little
Bo Peep.

Hawke