Taking Back the Constitution--A Case for Impeaching George W. Bush

Taki's Magazine | Posted by Kevin R. C. Gutzman on March 21, 2008



On Saturday, March 8, 2008, President George W. Bush vetoed a congressional bill that would have explicitly banned interrogation techniques like waterboarding. In doing so, Bush cemented his worthiness of impeachment.

The impeachment power allows Congress to keep the other two branches from grasping at powers that the Constitution gives to the Legislative Branch. Congress is described in Article I of the Constitution, and its structure was the chief issue in the Philadelphia Convention. Why? Because in a republic, it is to be the most important branch.

People commonly repeat the idea today that the federal government features three equal branches. This is an error. Congress is to be the most important branch. The Founders generally feared the power of the executive and assigned the traditional royal powers in foreign policy to Congress instead of the president. The courts were to be even weaker, the “least dangerous” branch.

Yet, over time, the three have come to be more equal. This is the result of Congress’s supine attitude toward the other branches’ overreaching. When federal courts legislate, Congress does nothing. When presidents and their subordinates—generals, cabinet officials, and others—ignore statutory law, refuse to comply with congressional demands for information, or flat-out lie to Congress, Congress does nothing.

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The U.S. Constitution is Not Democratic—and Why That’s a Good Thing

Kevin R. C. Gutzman | Taki's Top Drawer | February 21, 2008
Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It). Oxford University Press, 2006.
Sanford Levinson is very upset. As he sees it, the United States Constitution fails to uphold the principles of the American nation, and something needs to be done about it. Our Undemocratic Constitution is his case for a national referendum on calling a new constitutional convention to revise the Constitution to bring it into the 21st century.

What are the principles the national Constitution is supposed to further? They include those of the Preamble, asserts Levinson. Insofar as it does not conduce to the achievement of “a more perfect union,” say, “promote the general welfare,” or “secure the blessings of liberty,” then, the Constitution needs to be changed.

Those are not the only principles Levinson identifies as fundamental. Also fundamental are equality and democracy. Levinson knows that these are fundamental, and the Constitution does not serve them, so it needs to be amended to allow them to be followed, too.

Levinson points to several provisions of the Constitution as contrary to principles such as equality and democracy. He is especially exercised about the structure of the U.S. Senate and of the Electoral College, each of which skews outcomes in favor of less populous states. This is undemocratic, says Levinson, and cannot be tolerated.

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