Ed FirmageProfessor Firmage Speech - National Impeach Day - A28
Ed had planned on giving this speech which also appeared as an editorial in Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune, entitled The time has come for an impeachment tutorial, but instead delivered the kind of impromptu oratory for which he is so loved by his law students and everyone else.
Salt Lake City A28 National Impeachment Day Protest
May 1st, 2007 at 10:24 am
One encouraging sign: Rep. John Murtha says impeachment is “on the table”. “It’s just one of the things that we always consider. That’s part of the process. “
May 1st, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I received my form letter from Orrin Hatch today on this matter:
Dear Mr. Bergan:
This is in response to your letter expressing your support for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. I am always interested in the thoughts and opinions of Utahns and I welcome the opportunity to respond.
Men and women of goodwill can often disagree about the path our country should follow. With all due respect, the statement in your letter contained no legal rationale for impeaching the President. I certainly respect your opposition to the President and his policies. However, policy disagreements, no matter how adamantly they are held, do not amount to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the Constitution requires to impeach public officials. In addition, low approval ratings are not a constitutional basis for the removal of a sitting President. These issues are the principle substance of elections and the political process and, according to the will of our nation’s founders, not grounds for impeachment, In any event, impeachment proceedings must begin in the House of Representatives, not the Senate.
Thank you, one again, for your letter.
Sincerely,
- - - - -
With all due respect Mr. Hatch, it’s not “policy disagreements” that lead me to the conclusion that this “president” should be impeached. It’s the “rule of law”. If I remember correctly, you didn’t vote for the conviction of Bill Clinton and I condone your decision there, but if you will dig deeper, you may find it within your conscience to reconsider your position.
Sincerely,
Me.
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I am in favor of impeachment, not necessarily because I believe everything that is being alleged, but that I do believe at least a fair amount if it, and it would be a very healthy process for the country to undertake to find out what is really true in every regard. I am particularly interested in the impeachment article regarding “maladministering as commander in chief”. I continue to be perplexed and frustrated by that fact, and (although I hadn’t thought about it in that way until I watched the video of your speech) I agree that this should be a part of the impeachment proceedings.
Your reference to Bill Moyers’ segment on his video journal regarding the cheerleading leading up to the Iraq war made me remember a couple of comments I wanted to make about that as well. I watched the entire show twice, and was very surprised by how much in lockstep the media actually was in the months between Sept 2001 and Mar 2003, lest they be considered unpatriotic.
It was also interesting to me that some of the people who gave some of the most prescient warnings regarding the gadarene rush to war were people to whom I am diametrically opposed when it comes to general politics–Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Phil Donahue. (I was surprised to discover that Donahue’s MSNBC show was actually pretty high in ratings as far as MSNBC goes when it was cancelled 22 days before the March 2003 invasion.)
I remember organizations like the John Birch Society at the time saying that this Patriot Act thingy grants a ton of power to the executive branch, which it shouldn’t. I contemplated getting out of the military at the time, but decided to stay, and I subsequently decided not to dig too deep into the news for fear of what I might find.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Thanks, Frank, for your thoughtful comment. Bush’s tenure as Commander-in-Chief has found our troops overextended, abused, not equipped wih the best and safest weaponry and vehicles, and simply chewed up, with no possible chance for success. This is a major offence, committed by the man who above all others should be the protector of our young men and women in the military: the Commander in Chief. Ed Firmage
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Bush is the worst American commander-in-chief since James Madison at the Battle of Bladensburg, after which the British took the nation’s capital and burned down the White House.
However, is being a lousy commander-in-chief really an impeachable offense? I know impeachment is a political, not a legal process (as Congress proved last time). But doesn’t there have to be a “high crime”?
I would go with Bush’s illegal acts such as multiple violations of FISA and signing an order to establish CIA secret prisons and torture.
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Excellent!!!!!!!!!!
My Rep to congress, Lynn Woolsey would be proud, I hope that they team up with my other Rep Nancy Pelosi.
I trust all three to come up with the formula for IMPEACHMENT NOW!
Bob in Petaluma
June 7th, 2007 at 1:42 am
Richard, Madison had nothing like the Army Bush has, comparing the technology and training of the respective army’s. And he was a superb statesman, one of our top five, first birthing our constitution and continuing the great constitutional democracy in implementing the vast portions of the American Constitution he drafted, alone at first, arriving early to have the great jump on the other Founders by presenting his draft, which in the main sailed through. Bush, on the other hand, had destroyed the very rights, the bill of rights and the war clause to name two (11) we had when he, lamentably, won office (if indeed he did). Madison saved and created a country. Bush is destroying The United States lf America. Incompetent maladminiistration would be one subsuming article, with scores of sub-sections. the one mistake Rocky made in his debate with Hannity of FOX, however, was the fine point you’ve noted: we get one Commander in Chief at a time. So: even tough Bush lied through his teeth to invent this war; and these lies to our Congress and people as to weapons of mass destruction and the exportation of democracy with violence aimed at the entire superstructure of Irag, not to mention killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but also directly precipitation o emigration of about 3 million of their best and brightest: professors, doctors, nurses, lawyers, farmers. Those who can flee massive wars do as Vietnam and Thailand and Cambodia demonstrated. ed firmage
June 7th, 2007 at 5:33 am
Ed, let us not forget that the lies of the bush administration that led us to Iraq and Iran, were also bent on restructuring our own nation into one supporting almost any conflicting side in mighty arms races and utilization. Need work? ‘Bomb Triggers’ is hiring.
June 7th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I meant no criticism of Madison except that he failed as commander-in-chief, if I’m not mistaken the only US president ever to take command on the field of battle. My point was that it wasn’t an impeachable offense IMHO, absent a “high crime.”
June 7th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Caveat, there’s also been a rather large ‘bump’ in prosthetics as well.
June 8th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Dear friend Richard. You, as always, raise good points. But I think you’re mistaken on some of them, this time around. Excuse me if I’m loopy, now. I had a 911 this past midnight, and my usual visit by those few of the medical profession who do not malpractice: the firemen and policemen and medics. But, dear friend, George Washington rode his white stallion into battle. And Adams, to his great regret afterwards, delegated to Washington his right to ride into battle in what almost became the War of 1812. Washington demanded of Adams his right to name anyone he wanted as second-in-command. Adams damned well knew who Washington woud appoint, namely, his second-most-savage enemy, Alexander Hamilton, a man hugely worthy of being president and would have, except for Adams’ first-most-savage enemy, the traitor, though “of goodly parents,” Aaron Burr, who killed Hamilton in a duel, thus killing one of our greatest heroes. Hamilton made Adams president, really, by his magnificent loyalty to the Constitution he helped draft, and to the country he did as much to create as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. There was one other delegation of what I believe to be a non-delegable power, in a sense, that I”m spacing. I’m very very tired. I’m under orders not to do what I’m now doing. I’ll be in bed for a while, but carry on!!!!!!And read my book, with Francis Wormuth, TO CHAIN THE DOG OF WAR; THE WAR POWER OF CONGRESS IN HIISTORY AND LAW, at least, the chapter on the Commander-in-Chief clause. Pace e’ Bene. Ed Firmage
June 8th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
p.s. And yes, dear friend, it most certainly IS AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENCE to so malpractice, mismanage and lie to the troops and the country and the enemy, as Commander-in-Chief. If destroying the army and the marines, misplacing the Coastguard and the Navy doesn’t constitute a “high crime and misdemeanor,” then everything I’ve written is trash (which not a few think to be so). Read please, my Duke and Utah pieces on impeachment. The Duke Law Journal piece is in reality a book, over 100 pp. as I recall, on the procedural law of presidential impeachment; and the Utah Law Review piece, on the substantive law of presidential impeachment, about 20 pp., more or less. These done at the behest of Senator Frank E. (Ted) Moss, who operated on a request of the Majority Leader of the Democratic Party, or the Whip, I don’t recall, during the Nixon impeachment.
The very things we were talking about figured prominently in the Nixon impeachment negotiations. Waging a war of aggression, not only an impeachable offence, but also a capital crime, was rejected, most reluctantly, by the Judiciary Committee of the House, simply because Lyndon Johnson, my friend, had come very close to the same damned thing. It was not a war he wanted, unlike Bush, but it was a war he continued, to his everlasting sorrow and shame.
But Bush started this one, in cold blood. Think Nurenburg. Where once again, massive bombing of civilian centers, done precisely to kill civilizians, no “collateral damage” here, was dropped, again reluctantly, in the debates over the Nurenberg judgements, since we and the Brit’s, once again, like now, did hugely more civilian bombing than the Nazi’s. Not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This is the “don’t throw rocks if you live in glass houses” precedent, taken to the level beyond where I can’t reach. I believe the “clean hands” doctrine, in the law of Equity jurisprudence, is a very good thing. It’s related to Jesus” treaching of “judge not, lest ye be judged.!”
BUT Killing without international law, or constitutional law, or holy writ, read “just war” theology and law, at the level Bush is now doing in mass murder. No precedent protects serial killers. The “but he did it toooo!”, defence makes me wretch, which in fact I’ve been doing, about 20 times a day for a few weeks now. your friend and fellow soldier in the same foxhole, ed firmage
June 8th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Ed, I just went to Amazon.com and placed an order for your book.
I absolutely agree that what some politely call a “war of choice” is in legal terms a war of aggression– the principal charge at Nuremberg, as you point out. Waging an illegal war is a separate issue from simple malfeasance on the part of the commander in chief, however I can see how the two are closely related!
When I said Madison was the only president to take command on the field of battle, I meant while serving as president. My favorite president, Teddy Roosevelt, led the charge of the Rough Riders– but he went to the White House after that (with experience that probably made him a better commander in chief).
June 9th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Ed, Passes his apologies as he is out of range in the mountains and somewhat ill, but anxious to return soon.