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Academic

: Essentially Contested America

Bush's Criminality & Restoring Constitutional Government

By Robert Justin Lipkin

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Now that the catastrophic Bush-Cheney administration is slowly drawing to an end, talk of investigating this administration criminal abuse of power are

beginning to echo throughout the nation. "The last several years have brought a parade of dark revelations about the George W. Bush administration, from the manipulation of intelligence to torture to extrajudicial spying inside the United States. But there are growing indications that these known abuses of power may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now, in the twilight of the Bush presidency, a movement is stirring in Washington for a sweeping new inquiry into White House malfeasance that would be modeled after the famous Church Committee congressional investigation of the 1970s." To continue reading click here.

There's little doubt that scores of books and articles will be written on the topic of the Bush administration's abuse of power, but actual accountability requires more than accountability by historians. In fact, this criminal administration is the paradigmatic example of the reason the Framers included the impeachment provision in the Constitution. (That this provision was never invoked reveals a radical defect in our constitutional design.) The next best approach, and the approach that is necessary if accountability is to mean anything at all, is for Congress to formally investigate and delineate the charges that should have been brought against this administration.

Under the Bush-Cheney administration, American constitutional government has moved closer to a constitutional dictatorship. Whether constitutional democracy is retrievable is an open question. But without congressional investigations that open question virtually closes.

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Full post as published by Essentially Contested America on July 25, 2008 (boomark / email).