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Thursday, October 13, 2005

OK, here are the high crimes and misdemeanors required for impeachment
Posted by Jill | 6:58 AM

Impeachment is the People's redress when a president commits "high crimes and misdemeanors". Will Bunch informs us that C-Plus Caligula naming Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court because of her religion violates a number of laws:

Let's review:

The act: President Bush said Wednesday that Harriet Miers' religious beliefs figured into her nomination to the Supreme Court as a top-ranking Democrat warned against any "wink and a nod" campaign for confirmation.

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers," Bush told reporters at the White House. "Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion."

Misdemeanor No. 1: In using religion as a key basis for offering Miers a job, the president would appear to have violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the law "prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

Misdemeanor No. 2: More specifically, one could make the case that Bush's actions are also in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which specifically covers federal employees. According to the same EEOC primer: "The CSRA prohibits any employee who has authority to take certain personnel actions from discriminating for or against employees or applicants for employment on the bases of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age or disability."

High crime: As you might expect, the "high crime" here is more serious, and is also the area where it's hardest to argue that the president did not cross the line. We are referring to Article VI, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Do you honestly believe that Harriet Miers -- with all her other qualifications exactly the same -- would have been nominated to the Supreme Court if she had been Jewish, or an atheist, or Muslim? Of course not, because the president and Karl Rove, or Andy Card, or whoever's really running things these days, knew that such a choice would not pass muster with the radical clerics who sit on "the board of directors" of Bushco.

A mid-level bureaucrat who treated a job vacancy in this manner would surely be fired. Shouldn't we hold the president of the United States to an even higher standard?


Bush's feeble attempt to placate the Christofascist Zombie Brigade demonstrates that Karl "Stay On Message" Rove is clearly occupied elsewhere these days. Because Rove would NEVER allow Bush to state so baldly that he had a religious test for this nomination.
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