He's The Worst Ever

From the Washington Post courtesy of Eschaton:

Despite some notable accomplishments in domestic and foreign policy, Nixon is mostly associated today with disdain for the Constitution and abuse of presidential power. Obsessed with secrecy and media leaks, he viewed every critic as a threat to national security and illegally spied on U.S. citizens. Nixon considered himself above the law.

Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world. Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law.

One other president bears comparison to Bush: James K. Polk. Some historians admire him, in part because he made their job easier by keeping a detailed diary during his administration, which spanned the years of the Mexican-American War. But Polk should be remembered primarily for launching that unprovoked attack on Mexico and seizing one-third of its territory for the United States.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, some historians were calling him worst ever as early as 2003, and the arguments in favor of such a stance have picked up speed within the last year or so (see here or here). Personally, I think it's a "slam dunk" that Bush is the worst President ever. Ignore, for a moment, and if you can, the thousands dead due to his actions, the unwashable blood on his hands (as Lady Macbeth said, "Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand"), and just consider what he's done to dismantle the delicate system of Constitutionally mandated checks and balances that makes our democracy actually function. His numerous illegal "signing statements" alone, which brazenly signal to the nation that Congress has no legislative power when it contradicts the will of the executive branch, are prima facie grounds for impeachment, and that's just one of his many transgressions.

Indeed, that's what I'm really driving at. It really pisses me off that the incoming Congressional leadership has declared impeachment to be dead on arrival because "it won't help the country" or "the country doesn't want another impeachment." It will help the country if only for the single reason that it makes the Constitution reign supreme. We are a nation of laws, not men, and refusal to punish a President who would be king is serious dereliction of duty. Further, impeaching such an awful, even evil, President is simply the morally just thing to do. It doesn't really matter whether the country is tired of impeachments or not. This isn't about the popular will; it's about reestablishing the law of the land by the simple act of obeying it. The Constitution demands impeachment.

And that's what needs to happen.

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