Going to their heads?
As Rush says, lions do as lions do. They can't help themselves - it is ingrained.
Well, certain politicians are the same way - they are what they are. Rep. John Conyers is such a creature in that he, along with others, are just going to do hearing after hearing about all things politics.
This one has me a bit puzzled - is a hearing going to change a Constitutional privilege? I'm not talking about one that is infered (such as "found" items in laws under judicial review by activist judges).
WASHINGTON — A House Judiciary Committee hearing into the decision to commute the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will also take a look at other presidential pardons, the chairman of the committee said Thursday.
And this Committee will do...what? Settle what? Decide....what?
"Yes, we’re going to review all of them, including Clinton’s, Bush one, Bush two, we’ll go back as far as they want," Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said in an exclusive interview with FOX News Radio. Conyers added that the Nixon pardon would also be covered in the review.
"We’ll be doing the research. We won’t need to review each and every one of them but the whole idea is to examine to what use this part of our criminal law is being put and whether it’s being used adequately or are there other changes necessary," he said.
I'm no lawyer - not even an expert in politics....but this has 'politics" all over it. Frankly, this is NOT criminal law....it is constitutional law. Sure, the ability to research all decision is there. But to be able to DO anything about it? Absolutely not.
I'm afraid, however, that there will be quite a few folks out in the general public that may well believe that Conyers can do something about this (as if there was something to be done with it?) - hey, it's not like it's the Constitution (that old rag of a paper), right?
He has not exceeded his powers, but we're going to go after him anyways. This is such a waste of time. It is one thing to investigate something to bring it to light, but pretty much all pardons get reviewed by "the other side" no matter which Party has stewardship of the Office of the President.Conyers said he doesn't think President Bush acted outside his constitutional authority in commuting Libby's 2 1/2-year prison sentence, but he questions the use of that authority. The power to pardon is written into the Article II Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It states: "He (the president) shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."
Here's the deal - part of this has to do with the Democratic push their power. First, a power grab to control war-making capability by making quite a deal of the funding cuts. Then, with different pols going to visit foreign heads of state (most notably Pelosi going to Syria), another attempt to wrest foreign policy from the Presidency.
"We’re trying to examine the use and misuse of the clemency power and the commutation power and we’ll be examining it of all presidents because that’s the only way we can determine whether they’ve been used properly and whether there should be changes considered," Conyers said.
Tell you what - you run for President - then you get to make the decision whether is is a use or a misuse of Constitutional power.
He added that it "may be another problem" if lawmakers decide they want to do anything short of a constitutional amendment to limit that authority.
"We may be able to restrict it in some ways, but in addition to, we want everyone to be examining it," he said.
Supreme Court time folks. Speculating about a constitutional amendment, given how an amendment is passed into law, is just plain nuts. Short of changing the Constitution, there is no way to limit the President's clemency powers.
Not this American....Armitage should have stood up like a man and taken his lumps....but wimped out."This presidential intervention is an unconscionable abuse of authority by George W. Bush, and Congress must step forward and express the disgust that Americans rightfully feel toward this contemptible decision," Wexler said in a statement.
Nothing but pure politics...
