White House Must Answer For Missing Emails

Lucas123 writes "A District Court judge this week ruled in favor of a Washington-based watchdog group, allowing them to question White House officials about missing emails involving controversial issues. The subjects include the release of the identity of a former CIA operative, the reasons for launching the war in Iraq and actions by the US Department of Justice. The group had filed suit [PDF] last May against the White House Office of Administration, seeking access to White House email under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The discovery ruling is bringing to light issues of email retention in businesses and other private organizations. We've previously discussed the White House's difficulties with email."

Comments

Recycling

[milsoRgen]

But I thought the white house was simply recycling their data storage media by overwriting it with more current data. Poor W. he can't win for nothing...

Expected answer

[Protonk]

"They are missing, and we can't retrive them. We forget what was on them. Oops."

Sorry folks, but political operators learned from nixon. Don't keep evidence of malfeasance. Don't lie explicitly, just claim to not remember or not be in the loop. Delay, delay, delay, delay. This isn't going to be a watershed event. Odds are if those emails really ARE incriminating, then they are long, long gone.

Re:Expected answer

[GodfatherofSoul]

If they lost them, which they couldn't have (and after Senator Leahy called them out on this they somewhat admitted that they were lost not destroyed), then they've broken the Presidential Records Act. Actually, we probably have evidence of this already since White House staffers like Karl Rove have been circumventing official record keeping by using Republican National Committee email accounts for official business. Amazing how a little oversight uncovers so much dirt...

Re:Expected answer

[TubeSteak]

Alberto-i-do-not-recall-Gonzales
http://www.google.com/search?q="i+do+not+recall"

I wonder if the questioning will be under oath & videotaped.
At the minimum it'll make for a funny highlight reel.

Re:Expected answer

[Protonk]

and what's the end result of that? Is karl rove in jail for violating presidential records acts? Are those emails in the hands of prosecutors? Is there a prosecutor assigned? Are we likely to have an honest answer as to what happened before 2009? No. Rove et al used RNC email addresses to avoid archiving requirements as they engineered US elections by steering justice dept actions. That much is patently clear. When it looked like this was going to backfire, those emails got deleted and the participants either 'forgot' their content or refused to testify.

We agree on one thing, there was (and still is), very little oversight. It should stand as our enduring shame that senate and house oversight committees are spending time going after baseball and football scandals while our constitution burns.

Re:Expected answer

[fm6]

then they've broken the Presidential Records Act

So what? There are no criminal penalties involved. It would be worth noting if this violation could be noted for impeachment proceedings, but Congress isn't going to impeach W. Not unless he does something really evil, like having sex with an intern.

Re:Expected answer

[Zollui]

There's a government mechanism for dealing with such matters which people here might find surprising.

In fulfilment of a legal obligation. a request will be made to administrators and office staff to check their email accounts for the 'missing email'. The managers will accept the word of the staff under them, who will typically eyeball their inbox in Outlook before reporting 'no, haven't got it'.

Don't assume they're grepping through their servers because if they're just responding to a freedom of information request, they're not. They will restrict themselves to a search that seems 'reasonable' in the eyes of a technological illiterate, that's all.

Re:Expected answer

[flyingsquid]

So what? There are no criminal penalties involved.

You don't get it, do you? When you mess with the Presidential Records Act, you're messing with the entire National Archives system. That means they take away your National Archives Library Card. Want to check out that official copy of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, or the Marine Mammal Protection Act? Sorry, buster. You're gonna have to make do with a photocopy. And guess what? Without that card, you can still get in to see the Constitution... but not after hours.

Re:Expected answer

[click2005]

If either Bush or Cheney were impeached, arrested and locked up I bet the other would pardon him right before he left office.

Re:Expected answer

[Protonk]

That's because that wasn't part of an attempt to undermine our system of government. I don't care WHO you are, there hasn't been a president like gwb in office for at least 100 years. They have literally wrecked the place. I'm not talking about NCLB, Iraq, or whatever. That's all normal stuff. That's the kind of stuff that most of the presidents we remember would have done. Keenedy/Johnson got us into Vietnam. Roosevelt packed the supreme court. Hoover precipitated the great depressesion. Wilson effectily resegregated the federal government. Etc. That kind of stuff is easy to recover from.

They just smashed the joint up. They fired or forced to resign what amounts to hundreds to thousands of person-years of experience in government. They politicized every office they could get their hands on. they enriched cronies in brazen fashion. They used a national fucking tragedy to secure political control of congress. They pushed a TRIPLE FUCKING AMPUTEE who was a Vietnam veteran out of office because he had the temerity to stand up to their bullshit. They completed the circle of lobbyist control in congress started by Tom Delay. they made supine the court system and the legislature, and now they stand to do it again.

Getting dome in the white house doesn't begin to compare. We will go decades and not be able to access the wreckage honestly.

Re:Expected answer

[Anonymous Coward]

They didn't prosecute Clinton for the sex, they prosecuted him for lying under oath. The only time Bush ever lied under oath was when he took the oath to uphold the Constitution. But no one takes that one seriously anyway.

Re:Expected answer

[Protonk]

No, it doesn't. I've never seen anything so patently absurd in my whole life, and I've seen a lot of absurd things. To accuse the democratic congress of organizing a witch hunt is preposterous. Show me the witch hunt. Show me the weeks of dogged congressional action. Show me the impeachment proceedings. Show me the honest, hardworking americans forced into jail because of the partisan hackery of the democrats, I defy you.

There isn't a witch hunt. The fact that the democrats are willing to excercise a modicum of oversight should come as a slight relief, not rejected. Think about it:

This is what CLinton did:
Lied about getting dome in the white house while under oath. Suggested that his mistress lie under oath in order to protect him.

This is what bush did:
Used political operatives in the white house and the justice department to prosecute democrats during election seasons. Fired uncooperative prosecutors.
Used 9/11 to illegally wiretap large volumes of conversations over telephone and email. Didn't even use a secret court designed for such surveilance SIMPLY TO DECLARE THAT THE WH WAS BEYOND THE REACH OF THAT COURT. Lied about it even after it was discovered by the NY times 4 years later.
Deliberately moved a detention facility outside of US court jurisdiction in order to prevent detainees from getting basic human rights afforded to them. Violated the geneva conventions. authorized and lied about torture.
Replaced government professionals with political operatives and like minded conservatives. Used appointed officials to stifle press releases AND to eliminate oversight, resulting in (likely) the mine collapse disasters and the mismanagement of Katrina.

The list could go on. Those aren't partisan accusations. They aren't crazy conspiracies. They aren't unsubstantiated attacks. they are fucking facts, confirmed by former WH officials, members of congress, informants, or statements of the presidents adivsors while still in office. I didn't even include most of John Woo and David Addington's rape of our constitution or the iraq war. How has the partisan, liberal, democratic congress responded to these blatant examples of misconduct? About as meekly as a churchmouse.

Re:Expected answer

[jd]

Rove, et al, have worked so desperately hard to create an illusion of guilt hiding in innocence that it is almost impossible for them to have been as guilty as they have made themselves look. It's a wonderful paradox. Like a small child who pretends it was the invisible man, the pretense magnifies any real guilt as well as an electron tunneling microscope and the pretense adds to that guilt. This is not political, in that most people do the same thing. It's just that humanity has had a few hundred thousand years to develop better methods of dealing with things.

Re:Expected answer

[Digitus1337]

I had the honor of meeting Senator Cleland just prior to the 2004 Presidential election while he was campaigning for John Kerry. It was in a small room (in which I happen to be taking a course now) at the University of Central Florida, and the crowd was tiny. I was able to talk with him (and former Ambassador Pete Peterson) briefly and to shake his hand. He spoke then about how screwed up we were thanks to GWB's first term, and warned about what the second would be like. It's been almost four years, looks like he was right.

Re:Expected answer

[PixelScuba]

When the Clintons left office, their staff broke equipment before leaving and violated the rest. For example, they would leave pornographic images in the photocopier. Think of it as the previous management of SlashDot leaving Goatse as the new logo when they left. Of course, let's not forget about all the silverware and furniture that Hillary stole like it was cheap hotel towels.

Not even remotely true. I have work tomorrow and it's late. You're a blatant troll and I don't have time to discredit all of the obvious Clinton lies you've spouted. It should be enough to just throw out your first argument... but I'll even add a bonus link... Clinton Did not fire attorneys in the middle of their terms. Yes, all presidents fire attorneys when they begin... but only the current president hid conversations using RNC accounts and fired attorneys in the middle of their term for purely political reasons (The only attorneys fired in the middle of their terms from 1981 to 2006 were for misconduct... which was never cited as a reason for the current firings).

Like I said, it's late and I have work. Quit trolling and read some real information.

Re:Expected answer

[jamar0303]

"I'm sure there were extensive illegal surveillance of private US citizens... Wait, I'm thinking of RFK keeping tabs on MLK."
And what are the telcos being granted retroactive immunity for again?

Re:Expected answer

[Protonk]

Thank you for assuming that only the absence of bias confirms the truth. none of those organizations have any reason to sugarcoat the clinton presidency. Media matters, commondreams (although you may have a point there) have all run articles highly critical of the clinton white house and several democratic members of congress. This may surpise you, but most of the highly critical blogger/liberal left doesn't like clinton. That is at least one reason why obama is so popular, he isn't a clinton.

I don't really care if you are a rush listener or not. I also don't care if you have looked up Ad hominem enough on wikipedia to feel comfortable using it in conversation. When people say things like "liberal media" as a means to discount factual information, I have learned that they are usually operating from a standpoint of ignorance.

I know what the clinton whitehouse did. I know what the clintons did before getting to DC. I don't feel that those 8 years were good ones for politics. I feel that a number (though not most) of their policy decisions were bad and I feel that they continued down the same line of expansionist imperial executive thinking that continued into the bush administration. I feel that the clinton's shared mendacity cost this nation many things, not least among them the political capital to impeach bush in his second term.

None of this somehow equates the two email scandals or the scandals of the two presidencies. I really don't care WHO you are, as long as you aren't willfully ignorant, you can't help but see the bush administration as demonstrably worse on all accounts. WE may actually never know how bad they were, as republican loyalties run deep and there arne't likely to be substantive tell all stories. Regardless, this email fiasco is a small subset of the wreckage of our democracy wraught by the gang in charge--the real mess isn't likely to be sorted out with a change in the guard.

Re:Expected answer

[nebosuke]

Your parent is being buried because his statements are irrelevant to the argument of your GP regardless of whether or not they're true.

First, the GP was not arguing Clinton vs. Bush, so all of your parent's arguments are straw men.

Second, none of his points make the case that the incidents in question had lasting, significant repercussions for the political atmosphere of the nation and the role of the executive office, so your parent is also offtopic for the thread.

I personally disagree with the GP, but, when your post is a deliberate troll or even an unintentional red herring (they are often indistinguishable), some harsh treatment by mods shouldn't be any kind of surprise.

Re:Expected answer

[SgtChaireBourne]

... When you mess with the Presidential Records Act, you're messing with the entire National Archives system. ...

Except that the Bush administration replaced the head of NARA with a more obedient, political appointee. Presumably that is to ensure that key records find ways not to be around when requested.

Sure, we have all the tapes. Yep, stored exactly as specified, retensioned, the whole nine yards. Yep, 68 degrees, 38% humidity. Oh? No, you mean 68 degrees Fahrenheit? Oops, sorry about that.

That's just with the physical medium. Giving records the wrong or mispelled descriptor (aka tag or keyword) will hide them in a database or catalog nicely. Or it will prevent them from being earmarked for longer storage, etc.

Re:Expected answer

[Scudsucker]

They didn't prosecute Clinton for the sex, they prosecuted him for lying under oath.

No, they prosecuted him because they wanted to prosecute him, because he didn't lie.

Re:Expected answer

[sumdumass]

Well, actually, his post was relevant because it directly addressed the tone of his parent post.

If it was a troll, it should have been marked that way. But the only way is would have been is if his parent was a troll also. The point wasn't Clinton vs. Bush either. It was that it isn't the end of the world of the worst thing ever like the his parent post claimed. Either way, it doesn't matter because I help draw enough attention to it that mods made it appropriately to it before my post was buried. Which was my sole point.

BTW, modding something overrated to bury it's presentation without the chance of metamods correcting it is the chicken shit way of modding. If it really was a troll, it should have been marked that way. There has been sort of a conspiracy to do nothing but hide decent to the populist opinion or the opinion being pushed as the populist opinion. They do that with using over/under rating because of the lack of oversight.

Re:Expected answer

[Scudsucker]

They would have to because it would be little more then a political witch hunt.

Huh, and I was just talking about wingnut hypocrisy, too. You talk about how Clinton was impeached for lying under oath (which he didn't do) and two minutes later you blow off any impeachment of Bush and Cheney (who have broken many laws and Constitutional amendments) as "political witch hunt"? You're even faster than Pudge. You need to be taken out back and pistol whipped for being intolerably full of shit. Repeatedly.

Re:Expected answer

[h4rm0ny]

So if you have evidence with which to impeach Bush (and I'm not disputing that), then why isn't he impeached? Who is eligible to start the impeachment procedure in the USA?

For that matter, who is eligible to bring War Crimes charges against Blair in the UK? Something he is also guilty of for lying about WMD to get a war started.

Re:Expected answer

[rbanffy]

"witch hunt."?!

Unlike previous witches, there are strong indications of guilt for these.

Just a few things that come to mind:

- Lying about the reasons to wage a war - the executive branch sure had intel that showed there were little reason to believe Iraq had acquired WMDs and sure they want it to be hidden, thus the violations of the PRA.
- Asking the Congress to authorize a war based on presumably known faulty intelligence.
- Destroying any good will the US had after the 9/11 attacks in a frivolous war. More people hate the US now than probably ever and it will be ages before you recover from it.
- Assigning reconstruction contracts, according to shady criteria, to political allies.
- Compromising positions in Afghanistan because resources are being spent on a war that worsens things even more.
- Overthrowing the only non-theocratic regime in the region, giving way to a civil war that will eventually result in another theocracy. The US should have negotiated with Saddam. It's not that hard to negotiate when you can nuke someone.
- Shielding themselves from prosecution behind a "national security" veil. Misuse of this veil compromises its credibility and is extremely erosive to civil rights.

The current office is a disgrace for the US. I used to have more faith in your democracy.

There will be a lot of rebuilding to do after they are gone.

Re:Expected answer

[Zollui]

The guys will be mostly interested in making sure that no blame accrues to them in the matter. So the only thought going through their heads is: 'how do I make this thing go away with as little trouble to myself as possible?'

From this point, it depends on several external factors, such as whether there's a general understanding around the office that if the email(s) are found, it could mean trouble for an individual with seniority, or a general sort of trouble for people involved in the matter. Also, it depends on what would happen if someone found the email. I don't think anyone involved will not be under the impression that merely finding it would imply a sort of guilt by association. For example, suppose someone did find the email. Questions will follow, e.g. 'where did you find it?', 'how did you find it?', and then move on to 'why didn't you find it earlier?'. What would then happen is a search on the employee's record for any suggestion of a history of impropriety, with a view to establishing whether it's possible to scapegoat that employee when it's time to go public by saying 'X was untrustworthy - it was his fault - officials are investigating the authenticity of the alleged email in the light of the way it was discovered and the official responsible, etc.'

In summary, if nobody has any personal advantage in finding the email, then the mechanism for 'searching' for it will first involve making it generally understood that this is an 'important' email and its content may have implications for senior people (to make individuals anxious about the limelight falling on them in a negative way), and then a lax method of searching for the email will be deployed (i.e. literally asking people to do a quick 5-minute check and then give an assurance that they don't have it). This way, managers are covered. Everyone will understand that if the email is found, the press office and policy unit will have sole responsibility for producing a cover story, and heads will have to roll. And when on board a ship, some levels are more expendable than others - ultimately the bridge and the captain have to be protected at all costs.

How will they enforce it?

[jollyreaper]

White House to court: Make us.

Shit, I'm forgetting what the the request was but Congress asked the Attorney General to investigate someone. The reply: "That was a pointed and direct request so I will make sure my answer is pointed and direct: no."

So, what's the next step, send the sgt. at arms to haul their asses in?

Re:How will they enforce it?

[jollyreaper]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGpWtTJmfvY

Ah, here it is. We don't torture, never tortured, oh wait, we tortured three people. So now will we investigate? No. Fucker.

Re:How will they enforce it?

[milsoRgen]

Technically the congress could order the sgt. at arms to haul the people in to testify But which one to use?

Wilson Livingood or Terrance W. Gainer

I say send in Gainer to 'em soften up before Livingood can come in and finish the job.

Re:How will they enforce it?

[sgt_doom]

My humble suggestion would be exactly what they FBI did in the aftermath of those attacks of 9/11/01. They sent the damaged disk drives recovered from the two fallen towers to the German data recovery firm, Convar (given the possible classified nature, why wouldn't they have used government labs at NIST, NSA, DIA (yes, they have 'em), etc., or at least the state-of-the-art data recovery companies in North America? Oh yeah....Kroll purchased Convar the same time said data recovery was occurring. Oh yeah....whatever did the FBI do with the data, which a Convar spokesperson said had been successfully recovered? Oh well.......and so it goes.....

Re:How will they enforce it?

[rpillala]

If you're referring to John Conyers asking Mukasey about the CIA tapes, then that was the question. Conyers asked if Mukasey was prepared to begin an investigation into the possibility of criminal wrongdoing in the case of destroyed CIA tapes. Mukasey said "that's a direct question, so let me give a direct answer: no I am not."

The Daily Show may be a fake news show but there's information there.

Re:How will they enforce it?

[freedom_india]

Its a House contempt proceeding so it would be Livingood's office. No, its Not. The Sgt At Arms is responsible for the safety and security of congress critters, senators, visiting dignitaries. That's all.
Unless they see a threat to lives of congress critters, they won't do a job of arresting anybody.
However, the House could order DC Sherrif to prosecute Bush and Cheney as individuals maximum.

I bet it would be one helluva gunfight to watch DC cops battle it out with Secret Service.
I can see the headlines in Fox TV now: "President under attack by crazy cops. 11 dead. News at 11." Cheney goes into the bunker and issues a statement that DC cops are Iran's handymen and that we must bomb Iran now if we are to live.

Re:How will they enforce it?

[HidingMyName]

As mentioned in one of the other replies most likely Livingood, since he works for the House of Representatives, who voted on contempt today. If I understand, there are 2 forms of contempt of congress, typically congress uses a variant that goes through the executive branch for enforcement, but there is also a variant called inherent contempt that is enforced directly by congress, via the sargeant at arms. However Gainer's web page has an interesting quote (maybe a hint?).

The Sergeant at Arms is authorized to arrest and detain any person violating Senate rules, including the President of the United States.

Emails?

[drewmoney]

Yeah, I think they'll find Osama before they find those missing emails.

Well...

[martinQblank]

Waterboarding shouldn't be out of the question to get the answers. Right?

/dev/null

[EmbeddedJanitor]

I stored them there.... I swear it.... now they're gone!

Re:So am I the only one holding my breath?

[Bootle]

Oh no, now Bush is going after Ireland?

How do you lose email?

[v(*_*)vvvv]

I am curious whether email can even get lost accidentally in the first place. A handwritten letter, fine, but email gets written, saved, archived, sent to the server, copied, recopied, delivered, logged, saved, archived... Plus, even deleting doesn't get rid of the data completely until the disk is overwritten, scrambled, or dipped in lava.

If you *have* to conspire to completely delete emails of such mass quantities, then why isn't this all just a matter of finding the guilty party?

If they build their systems so that no trails are left, then that in itself is evidence of an intent to conspire.

Re:How will they appeal it?

[Harmonious Botch]

Why prosecute when a SCOTUS justice indicates that he would reverse on appeal?

US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Tuesday defended the use of harsh physical interrogation techniques, saying in an interview with Law in Action on BBC Radio 4 that they may be justified to deter an immediate threat. Scalia argued that "so-called torture" may not necessarily be prohibited by the US constitution, as he said the Eighth Amendment bar against "cruel and unusual punishment" was only intended to apply to criminal punishments:

Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited under the Constitution? Because smacking someone in the face would violate the Eighth Amendment in a prison context. You can't go around smacking people about. Is it obvious that what can't be done for punishment can't be done to exact information that is crucial to this society? It's not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth. Just to mollify shoot-the-messenge moderators, I favor impeaching Scalia for this.

Re:How will they appeal it?

[Protonk]

While I know you agree with me, the rub is of course that such treatment is a violation of treaties the US has entered in to and laws passed by congress in order to comply with those treaties. I don't think too many people are suggesting that 8th ammd. protection applies here. That is one of the reasons while Gitmo was chosen over Charleston (the original detainee site).

And, IMO, the imminent threat theory is a terrible, terrible, terrible legal justification, what a shame that no one is in a position to lecture this guy on it. :(

Re:But at the end of the day....

[snl2587]

If the Attorney General gets to decide who to prosecute, they will not go after their own office.

Except that, due to oversight, it will not be left to the Attorney General.

theywontanyway

[slimjim8094]

See title. They'll do what they do every time the courts demand that they comply: nothing.

This administration needs a slap in the face with a nail-filled board. I don't see these courts doing that any time soon... although I'm sure that "they really mean it this time, you have to give it to us!" Unfortunately, that'd be compromising "national security". Must say I'm not sure how rigging an election qualifies as national security, but since I don't quantifiable know what's in those emails, I'll just take your word Georgie.

Sigh. If this is the price, I'd rather watch out for myself - it's cheaper that way.

OT: hardware? why?

Well...

[jwietelmann]

If you believe Greg Palast, those emails aren't so lost after all. His claim is that Rove and company messed up and accidentally sent a bunch of those emails to http://georgewbush.org/ addresses instead of http://georgewbush.com/. If these emails are genuine, they detail, among other things, how Republican operatives used a practice called caging to suppress probable opposition voters.

Of course given the nature of email, it's probably not provable that the email is genuine. And it doesn't help that Palast has a bit of a muckraker reputation. From what I've seen, he does have a bit of a bias, but I've never known him to fabricate his evidence. Personally I'm inclined to believe the emails are real, but, like I said, I'm not sure you can prove that. Unless of course they also turn up in the White House archives.

Oh, right. Nevermind.

It wasn't the sex

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It was messing a pretty blue dress and wasting a fine cigar.

Waterboarding anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I know the staff there can be FORCED into REMEMBERING every single one of those lost emails, it is simply a matter of a weekend at Gitmo for the ENTIRE staff and that fantastic new waterboarding sport, as the Whitehouse as stated, they are gonna do it, legal or not...

Re:"I do not recall."

[ArcherB]

Or, as Reagan would have said, "I do not recall." I believe he said that over and over again when being questioned about his role in the Iran/Contra affair. He had Alzheimer's you insensitive clod!

Why don't you make fun of Roosevelt for not jogging on the Whitehouse lawn?

Re:How will they appeal it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What really bothers me about this constitution - torture debate is that it sidesteps the important issue.

Torture is wrong.

Its what the enemy is supposed to do, not us (or I should say you, since I'm Canadian), it doesn't matter if you can magic the constitution into yet-another-bible to be interpreted into supporting whatever you feel like.

And frankly, if you do torture someone to get important info, and you get caught: you say "sorry, it was wrong," and you fire/jail the guy that did it. What kind of government are you running down there anyway? Why are these guys still in power?

I was watching Red October the other day, and was amused that the 1st officer was looking forward to defecting because he could go from state to state without papers.... we'll see how long that lasts...

(I'm not wearing my tin foil hat, so posting anonymous)

There's a simple explanation for all of this.

[Revotron]

They use Windows Server.

Case closed.

Re:How will they appeal it?

[Harmonious Botch]

What kind of government are you running down there anyway? We made the mistake of letting people like you run it. Well, not exactly like you, but people who are like you in that they are absolutely sure that they know what is right and wrong.
And that was our mistake. We should have stuck with people who know what the constitution says. The US constitution, even with all it's shortcomings, at least provides some protection. Even allowing for differences in interpretation, it still provides some protection.
But if you put a guy in office who believes that he can do anything as long as it is right for his country, and who further believes that he gets to determine what is right and nobody can second guess him, then he can do anything.

You see, the issue is not 'is torture wrong?', the issue is 'is torture unconstitutional?'

Why are these guys still in power? Because we still have, embedded in our political processes, some remnants of respect for the constitution. And because of Monica.

We had a close call a few years back, almost impeaching a guy for a blow job. We scared ourselves on that one. Each self-rightous politician was determined to be greater in his criticism of the prez than the next guy, and it kinda got out of hand. Everybody knew that we really shouldn't do it, but nobody seemed to know exactly when to stop. I mean, nobody wanted wanted to be the guy who said 'Hey, I think blow jobs from interns are ok.' But eventually, enough people realized that if it went through, they wouldn't be getting blow jobs in the future, so it fell apart. When asked why they were changing their minds, they couldn't really come out in favor of blow jobs, so they invoked the constitution, noting that he really hadn't reached the constitutional definition of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."

Like a sailor who tacks back and forth across his intended course, sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other, we sort of follow the constitution. Sometimes we are too liberal, sometimes too cautious.
Right now, post-blow-job, we are erring on the side of being too cautious. So faced with a president who probably does deserve to be inpeached for incompetence and the pointless deaths of 4000 of his countrymen, we pretend that the best way to get rid of him is just to let him serve out his term and then we will put someone else in by election.

Re:How will they appeal it?

[Harmonious Botch]

You favor impeaching a Supreme Court justice for doing his job and providing his interpretation of the Constitution? I don't support the use of torture, but jesus, the consequences of impeaching justices for not interpreting the Constitution the same way you do are far, far worse. It is not for his interpretation of the constitution, but for completely ignoring it.

The whole idea of the constitution is to limit the government. This means that sometimes you have to let the guilty go free, because an unrestrained government is far more dangerous than the few criminals who go unpunished.

What Scalia is saying is the opposite: that you can ignore the constitution based upon individual circumstances: in particular, that you can duck the constitution based on an imminent threat. Who gets to decide if the threat is credible? Who gets to decide if it is really imminent? Well, apparently, the president. As Scalia sees it, the president can order the torture of anyone with no judicial or congressional review. This is what I mean by completely ignoring the constitution.

By contrast, interpretation of the constitution would be something like saying 'waterboarding is not cruel and unusual.'

Re:How will they appeal it?

[10101001 10101001]

as he said the Eighth Amendment bar against "cruel and unusual punishment" was only intended to apply to criminal punishments:

No person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself ..

If you're torturing someone for evidence in a trial....

... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

... and if it's not as a means to collect evidence for a trial, then clearly due process of law is not being followed, which means you can't torture the person* (ie, deprive them of life) or detain the person (ie, dperive them of liberty). Or, simple put, torture is prohibited by the 5th Amendment.

I always love it how those who wish to do narrow the rights of others so gravity towards focusing on a narrow interpretation of one Amendment or clause, completely disregarding how another smacks in the face of their analysis.

*Note: This isn't mean to say that you could legalize torture, just that this clause alone doesn't stipulate the absolute illegality of torutre.

nice try

[Scudsucker]

Clinton was impeached for lying under oath

No, he was impeached because the Republicans wanted to impeach him. By any means necessary. Whitewater didn't work. Vince Foster didn't work. So they settled on the excuse of a manufactured perjury charge:

During the Paula Jones deposition, President Clinton was asked if he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. But before the questioning began, the Jones' lawyers produced the following legal definition of sexual relations:

"For the purposes of this deposition, a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes:

1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;
2. Contact between any part of the person's body or an object and the genitals or anus of another person; or
3. Contact between the genitals or anus of the person and any part of another person's body.

Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."

A lengthy debate followed between the two teams of lawyers. It turned out points 2 and 3 were too broad: anyone accidentally brushing their hips against another person could be accused of having "sex." Judge Susan Webber Wright therefore eliminated points 2 and 3. However, notice that point 3 would have clearly included oral sex performed on Clinton. Its removal set the stage for the controversy to follow.

The Jones' lawyers then asked Clinton if he had sex with Monica Lewinsky based on the remaining definition.

Unfortunately, the definition still contained ambiguities. Who are the "persons" mentioned in the definition? Clinton interpreted it this way:

"For the purposes of this deposition, a person [the deponent, in this case, Clinton] engages in sexual relations when the person [Clinton] knowingly engages in or causes:

1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person [that is, any other person, in this case, Monica Lewinsky] with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person [Lewinsky];

Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."

Given that understanding, the definition clearly does not include oral sex performed on Clinton. Why? Because oral sex is performed with the mouth, and "mouth" is not listed among the other body parts in point 1. Furthermore, a man receiving oral sex is generally considered to be receiving pleasure rather than giving it, and so fails the criterion "to arouse or gratify the sexual desire" of Ms. Lewinsky. Which may make Clinton sexually selfish, but that is not illegal.

Some have argued that Clinton's interpretation of "person" is wrong, and that makes him guilty of perjury. But his interpretation is reasonable at most, and arguable at least. Even if Clinton did misinterpret the most obvious meaning, it is up to prosecutors to prove that he intended to lie about it rather than he was mistaken, something that is impossible to prove. And in any case, it is up the to the prosecution to agree to definitions that are not ambiguous. The Jones' lawyers could have easily eliminated any confusion by replacing the term "person" with "deponent and any second party," but they did not. They could have also asked follow-up questions to clarify anything - indeed, they were invited to by Clinton's lawyers - but they did not. The whole incident is a classic case of prosecutorial incompetence.

The only way to prove that Clinton lied, much les