The American Mind

Senator Chuck Hagel, in his quest to maybe, sort of, win the GOP Presidential nomination by ticking off as many Republicans as possible, brought up the possible impeachment of President Bush if he doesn’t bend to Congress’ will.

On Sunday, Hagel said he was bothered by Bush’s apparent disregard of congressional sentiment on Iraq, such as his decision to send additional troops. He said lawmakers now stood ready to stand up to the president when necessary.

In the April edition of Esquire magazine, Hagel described Bush as someone who doesn’t believe he’s accountable to anyone. “He’s not accountable anymore, which isn’t totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don’t know. It depends on how this goes,” Hagel told the magazine.

Now, unless Hagel’s fallen down with the “Bush lied, people died” crowd who think the administration purposely damaged their reputation by lying about Saddam’s WMD possession, he doesn’t have much to stand on. Barring actual evidence that deliberate misleading took place President Bush’s good faith effort to wage war on Iraq and the missteps taken doesn’t meet the Constitution’s “high crimes and misdemenors” standard. Being a maverick doesn’t mean you can make the constitution say what you want it to say–unless your a liberal Supreme Court Justice.

Sunday, on This Week Hagel declared, “This is not a monarchy.” Correct, but it doesn’t mean Congress gets its way either. Something about the checks and balances Bush critics claim this administration has ignored.

Sadly for Hagel, he only gets attention by saying outrageous things. The more he opens his mouth the smaller his Presidential chances get.

“Senator: Some See Impeachment As Option”

UPDATE: Ed Morrisey [via BitsBlog] goes off on Hagel’s inability to understand the Constitution he took an oath to protect and defend:

It does not grant Congress the right to remove a President on policy grounds. In fact, the entire idea of the balance of powers is to ensure that policy differences get worked out by compromise and that Congress does not act out of a mob mentality. The founders made the branches co-equal for a reason, and that was to limit the power of both. Otherwise, they would have chosen the parliamentary model — they had the British system as an easy example to follow — and made Congress the arbiter of executive policy.

This is just another example of Congress trying to abdicate its own responsibility on Iraq. Congress could end the war in Iraq tomorrow by cutting off all funds for the deployment. They do not need George Bush to take that step. However, it would then put the responsibility for everything that follows squarely on the shoulders of Congress, and the Representatives and Senators there largely want to avoid that. A handful of them would rather initiate an unconstitutional impeachment adventure, which would leave Dick Cheney in charge and result in no policy change whatsoever anyway, than accept the responsibility of their own actions.

It’s more than passingly strange that a man who wants to run for President seems so unfamiliar with the document that established the office. Hagel must be confused as to which party he proposes to lead. I don’t think he’s going to win much support in the primaries by running on the impeachment platform , at least not running as a Republican.

That last sentence is interesting given that Hagel and Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) will introduce a bill that was “focused on deployment, redeployment, training, [and] equipment.”

“Unity 08 ticket: Hagel/Webb?” Sure, let’s keep the cut-and-runners together where we can see them.