The Impeachment Clock

It’s been five and one-half months now. Five and one-half months of the House of Representatives willful dereliction of duty! This is truly a case of ”Justice delayed is justice denied.”

So much time has passed, in fact, that defenders of this Administration’s criminal acts are making believe (they may even believe it themselves) that no criminal acts occurred. They happily trot out the equivalent of “Get Out of Jail FREE” cards whenever Bush’s impeachable offenses are mentioned. Here’s a sample from just this week:

• The FISA courts own origination legislation states that it can't infringe on Presidential power.
  UNTRUE!
  The legislative history of FISA says just the opposite!
  [See Presidential Authority to Conduct Warrantless Electronic
  Surveillance to Gather Foreign Intelligence Information]

  The statutory language in FISA and the legislative history of the bill that became FISA, S. 1566 (95th Cong.), reflect the Congress’s stated intention to circumscribe any claim of inherent presidential authority to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined by the Act, to collect foreign intelligence information, so that FISA would be the exclusive mechanism for the conduct of such electronic surveillance.

• The Supreme Court has ruled that FISA can't take power away.
  UNTRUE!
  The US Supreme Court has never ruled on FISA powers!
  [See Ibid. "The Court has yet to rule on the matter."]
  
  
• The best legal minds in government agree that there is nothing illegal about the NSA monitoring these calls.
  TRUE, just like OJ’s Dream Team agreed he was innocent.

The common theme here is to insulate and distance this Administration from its criminal behavior. The defenders are providing the House Republicans with bogus excuses to put clearly impeachable offenses out of their reach. I can hear the ghost of Johnny Cochran saying, “If it doesn’t Reach, you cannot Impeach!”