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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (24438)	8/6/2003 7:28:03 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Missing Weapons Of Mass Destruction: Is Lying About The Reason For War An Impeachable Offense? By JOHN W. DEAN writ.corporate.findlaw.com <<...Worse than Watergate? A Potential Huge Scandal If WMDs Are Still Missing Krugman is right to suggest a possible comparison to Watergate. In the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison. If the Bush Administration intentionally manipulated or misrepresented intelligence to get Congress to authorize, and the public to support, military action to take control of Iraq, then that would be a monstrous misdeed. As I remarked in an earlier column, this Administration may be due for a scandal. While Bush narrowly escaped being dragged into Enron, it was not, in any event, his doing. But the war in Iraq is all Bush's doing, and it is appropriate that he be held accountable. To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked. Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution's impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose." It's important to recall that when Richard Nixon resigned, he was about to be impeached by the House of Representatives for misusing the CIA and FBI. After Watergate, all presidents are on notice that manipulating or misusing any agency of the executive branch improperly is a serious abuse of presidential power. Nixon claimed that his misuses of the federal agencies for his political purposes were in the interest of national security. The same kind of thinking might lead a President to manipulate and misuse national security agencies or their intelligence to create a phony reason to lead the nation into a politically desirable war. Let us hope that is not the case...>>

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (24438)	8/6/2003 8:02:11 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The fruits of Bushonomics ________________________________ By Robert Kuttner Columnist The Boston Globe 8/6/2003 GEORGE W. BUSH faces a race between the ill-advised economic policies sown in the first half of his term and the bitter fruit that those policies are starting to bear. If the sour effects of his economic policies are evident by mid-2004, he is in deep political trouble. For now, at least, Bush can say that the economic news is mixed. The unemployment rate went up to 6.4 percent in May. It dropped slightly, to 6.2 percent, in June -- but only because more and more people have dropped out of the labor force entirely as payrolls continued to shrink. Economic growth came in at 2.4 percent for the second quarter of 2003. That was better than expected, but it needs to hit 4 percent or higher to reduce unemployment. Bush's cheerleaders say that will happen, in well-choreographed fashion, in the election year. But will it? Timing is everything. George Bush the first missed his rendezvous with prosperity in 1992. And the policies of Bush I were not as damaging as those of Bush II. Consider these several danger signs: Deficits and interest rates. Long-term interest rates have gone up a full point in a month. Mortgages, which could be had at a bargain-basement 5 percent in late June, are back to 6 percent. The refinancing boom is slowing. The bond market is swooning. Bush optimists contend that interest rates are going up because investors, sniffing a recovery, are shifting to stocks, leaving less demand for bonds. Dream on. Skeptics correctly point to the immense deficits resulting from Bush's three tax cuts. If unsustainable deficits loom, the money markets eventually push up interest rates. Higher interest rates, of course, are bad for the recovery. If investors sense the risk of inflation down the road, that undercuts the Federal Reserve's ability to stimulate the economy with lower short-term rates now. Most serious of all, if long-term interest rates are impervious to the Fed's policy of cutting short-term rates, then Alan Greenspan's sorcery has lost its power. (And deservedly so. Greenspan should have used his prestige as a central banker to discourage the Bush tax cuts instead of taking a dive as a good partisan.) Will the true effects of the Bush deficits stay obscured until November 2004 while the Fed tries to keep growth on track? That looks less and less likely. Trade. Like his military policy, Bush's trade policy has been a blunt instrument. Bush and his economic appointees have been pushing for more international trade with few conditions attached. In theory this is good for everyone. In practice, global trade with few ground rules has exported more jobs than it has imported. In their recent road trip, top Bush economic officials heard that China's absorption of American jobs is killing local economies. America's trade deficit with the rest of the world continues to widen. The Democrats may be divided on some issues, but on trade most Democrats favor conditioning trade with labor and other regulatory standards so that its benefits truly flow both ways. In an election year with a soft economy, Bush-style free trade is likely to be an ever harder sell. Vanishing services. Ordinary Americans are saving a few bucks in their federal income taxes. Most of the breaks went to the top. But as Bush and company cut federal aid while adding costly federal mandates, local services are deteriorating. Meanwhile, many states are having to raise property and sales taxes. Normally in this kind of downturn, Washington helps the states. This time Bush put tax cutting ahead of aid to states and communities. Congress grudgingly included an emergency $20 billion only because Democrats insisted on it. Even so, that sum is a small fraction of the state budget shortfall. Ordinary people are also losing private health benefits and retirement income. The connection between some of these economic woes and Bush's policies are direct. In others, such as dwindling health security, the connection is more indirect; it reflects what the administration failed to do. But it almost doesn't matter how well voters explicitly connect the dots. A bad economy spells bad news for an incumbent president. A lot of this is implicitly about class and the tiny elite that Bush has helped. In good times Americans don't want to hear about class. Everyone expects to be Bill Gates someday. But in tough times, regular people become far more alert to who is getting most of the cookies. Bush is accountable for that, too. ______________________________________ Robert Kuttner's is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe. © Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company. boston.com