Why it's Too Late To Impeach the President (I Promise)

(To make sense of this, make certain you read to the end)

There has been a lot of argument over impeachment recently, but trust me, it's far too late. But first, let's look at Ten Reasons why the President should have been impeached long ago:

1) He had a wealthy and privileged childhood and got into office through connections and shadowy family deals in the first place.

2) Made unconstitutional and unprecedented expansions of the President's power. Was able to stack the Supreme Court with ideologues. Took us to levels of spending and national debt never seen before.

3) Mismanaged our nation's intelligence agencies; shockingly faulty intelligence allowed the enemy to catch us with a surprise attack, leading to the deaths of over 2,000 Americans. Plus, there are strong allegations that he knew of the attack beforehand and deliberately planned to use it as an excuse for war.

4) Advocated Racial profiling, even detaining large numbers of people without due process, including some US citizens. Detained many of them in special camps, denied them their basic constitutional rights, and suspended habeus corpus. Also allegations of torture and secret detentions.

5) While he should have concentrated on the one enemy who actually attacked us, he spent billions of $$ and strained our military resources on another nation who never attacked us or posed a real threat to us.

6) Complete veil of secrecy surrounding his administration. Tightly controlled what press who would have access to him and how. His many handlers deliberately manipulated the media to cut out any real dissenting voices whatsoever and avoid the hard questions.

7) Shockingly poor treatment of African-Americans.

8) Ignored the Fourth Amendment, authorized the government to read private correspondence and communications without a warrant.

9) Was overly friendly with certain oppressive regimes and brutal dictators, even some who are openly hostile to the US.

10) Sent our nation to war without ever seeing combat himself. Attempted to cut veteran benefits and shortchange our troops. Led the nation like a dictator - refusing to seriously negotiate with the opposition.

Oh wait - did you assume I was talking about Bush? I only said "the President"...

All of the above "crimes" were committed by none other than President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Obviously, it's too late to impeach him since he died over 62 years ago.

So not only was he a "dictator" who ignored the constitution and sent our young men in harm's way (but not himself), there's also his personal life. I could point out the fact that Roosevelt had affairs outside marriage and George W. Bush did not (although just wait for those allegations to come up sometime).

But just for the record, FDR was not only one of the greatest Presidents, but one of the greatest world leaders of all time. And no I don't really think he should have been impeached. But I am fully confident that if he were in office today, even if he only tried a fraction of the above, he would be ruthlessly attacked not only in the blogosphere, but in the media as well. It's very unlikely he would have been elected to even two terms, not to mention three or four, and also unlikely to escape impeachment attempts.

And I'm not saying Bush was the better President. But when Bush is portrayed as bad as Hitler or Al-Qaida, a periodic "sanity check" is desperately needed. Comparisons like this list can help put things back in perspective again.


If you are curious, here are explanations for the points above, one by one:

1) In his early political career, Roosevelt was elected to state offices solely on his family name. He was a fifth cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, but they were still relatively close. Theodore even stood in for Franklin's late father at the wedding in 1905 when he married Eleanor Roosevelt.

2) Roosevelt's "New Deal" expanded the government like never before. Social Security was created along with thousands of other new federal programs. It may have jump started the economy, but also came with tax hikes and debt. Not surprisingly, the national debt greatly increased during the war. The Supreme Court blocked many of Roosevelt's proposals, which led to his "court packing plan" where he tried to add six new justices to the court (which he would appoint, of course). This was a blatant grab at power, and was adamantly blocked by congress. The attempt was one of the few things he did that cost Roosevelt a lot of support and popularity.

3) Everyone knows that the US was attacked on Dec 7, 1941. The number dead stood at 2,333, (not far from 9/11's death toll at 2,998). No, I don't believe that Roosevelt knew about the attacks beforehand, but unfortunately many conspiracy theorists do, including even respected authors like Gore Vidal.

4) Starting in 1942, about 120,000 Japanese (and a fair number of Germans and Italians) were detained in "relocation camps" in WWII (Incidentally, Canada also detained about 20,000 Japanese). This was on Roosevelt's direct order, and the Supreme Court backed him up. Most of these people were detained for no reason other than their ancestry. It was clearly unconstitutional; I can't imagine how strong the backlash would be if the US or Britain tried this with Muslims or even Iraqis today.

5) After Pearl Harbor, the US declared war on Germany and Italy as well as Japan, which is what Roosevelt wanted anyway (Of course, Germany and Italy made it easy, since they also declared war on the US).

6) Secrecy and media control were unprecedented in Roosevelt's time. He wouldn't even allow any photos released of him in a wheelchair. The press voluntarily chose not to write about Roosevelt's mistress, Lucy Mercer, either, because it would have hurt the nation. I just can't imagine anyone in the media making that same consideration today.

7) While Roosevelt is generally credited with raising the status of African-Americans, the south's "Jim Crow" laws were still left in place, blacks were still legally segregated and forbidden to marry whites. Moreover, in the 1930s, about 400 blacks were intentionally denied treatment for syphilis during the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. Today, I think such an event would spark an impeachment all by itself.

8) The "Office of Censorship" was formed in Dec 19, 1941, less than two weeks after Pearl Harbor. It employed over 14,000 people that opened every piece of mail and read every telegram that was either coming from or going overseas. Moreover, the media was not allowed to show any photographs of dead Americans for the first two years of WWII. Bush's NSA wiretapping of suspected terrorists rather pales in comparison. Now, the current war on terror is far more limited in scope than WWII was, but Bush's program is also far more limited in scope than the "Office of Censorship" was.

9) Roosevelt allied himself with Josef Stalin, and as a result, we were left to deal with a resurgent Soviet Union through the next 40 years.

10) Roosevelt never served in the military, and it wasn't due to health reasons. His weakness and paralysis didn't appear until he was about 29 years old. In, 1913 President Wilson appointed him assistant Secretary of the Navy and he created the Navy Reserve, despite never having served on any boat other than the family yacht. All four of his sons did serve in WWII however. Although he had a lackluster service, at least George W. Bush joined the Air National Guard. In 1933, in a cost cutting move, he also tried to cut 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and slashed benefits for the remainder, until he was blocked by Congress. He also refused to debate his opponents in the Presidential elections.


Incidentally, when I've brought up similar comparisons in the past, I usually see the following objections, so I'll just go ahead and respond to them up front right now:

1) Times were very different then. You can't compare then and now.
Why not? Many people who lived then are still alive now. People's attitudes were certainly different in the 30s and 40s, but the media was also far more generous to the President, which is actually my whole point here.

2) OK, Roosevelt may have been corrupt too. That doesn't excuse Bush.
Agreed - I'm not making any excuses for anyone.

3) Well, as bad as he was, at least Roosevelt won his war
Did he? He certainly won on the battlefield, but lost much of the Peace afterward, similar to our situation in Iraq. Instead of being liberated, Eastern Europe and China ended up simply transferred from one brutal dictator to another (although to be fair, while Roosevelt laid the groundwork for this, the actual aftermath of the war was on Truman's watch).

4) Well, at least Roosevelt knew what he was doing, but Bush is an idiot
Without having actually met either, or being able to objectively compare their SAT or IQ scores I couldn't argue this one way or the other.



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