Ellison Says Principles Are Behind Effort to Impeach Cheney
Friday, July 13, 2007 at 6:56 pm
- 12 Comments
Eric Black Contributed to this story
Some people say the attempt to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney isn’t anything more than a charade by far-left Democrats.
That’s not the case for U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, who gets animated about the subject. The freshman Democrat from Minneapolis has joined a dozen or so lawmakers as co-sponsors of a bill to impeach Cheney for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
The alleged crimes are yet to be spelled out by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who sponsored the bill late last month. But Ellison accuses Cheney of “abusing his power…and abstracting information.”
Ellison cites two instances in which Cheney classified his role differently each time.
In 2001, Cheney fended off a congressional inquiry into the inner workings of his energy task force, claiming that doing so “would unconstitutionally interfere with the functioning of the executive branch.”
This year, the vice president, dubbed by some as the most powerful in U.S. history, refused to file national security documents with the national archive, saying that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”
“If that’s not abuse of power,” said Ellison in an interview with Minnesota Monitor, “I don’t know what is.”
Asked if an impeachment effort is practical and worth his energy, Ellison said: “I didn’t sign on to it for reasons of practicality. It’s about principles and holding [Cheney] accountable for his actions.”
Still, few expect the impeachment effort to gain enough traction.
“I understand how unpopular [Cheney] has become, but that’s no basis for impeachment,” said Michael J. Gerhardt, professor of law at North Carolina State University who testified before Congress as an expert witness on impeachment. “You have to make both political and constitutional calculations. Even the political calculations are not right now in favor of moving forward on it. I don’t think there’s much taste for it in Congress.”
President Bush’s recent decision to commute the sentence of Scooter Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, “broke the camel’s back for me,” said Ellison. “Cheney had everything to do with that decision.”
Asked why not impeach President Bush then, Ellison said, “I haven’t ruled that out, though I haven’t ruled it in either. I just haven’t addressed it yet.”
Eric Black contributed to this story
12 Comments
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 9:45 am
Ellison is a far left democrat who is charading a thoughtful lawmaker he admits to not being practical…. he is participating in another endless demoncrat witchhunt….. to sign on with Dennis Kocinich …..who is a lunatic…..speaks volumes of Keith (parking tickets??..i do not have to pay any stinking parking tickets) Ellison’s maniacal mindset
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 9:54 pm
Hold your horses Before you name-call people, you must respect Ellison’s right as a congressman to scrutinize the executive branch (or legislative-whichever Cheney decides to be part of)
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 1:24 am
Pigeon-hold? Abdi,
In my view, you are one of the best, if not the best writer, at the Minnesota Monitor.
However (and you may have known this “however” was coming), it appears that you are being pigeon-hold into becoming a permanent member of the “Muslim” beat.
Taking a look at your recent stories (e.g., cabbies at the airport, Ellison), there is a sort of “Muslim” connection to all of them. Not that there is anything wrong with that (to pick up Jerry Seinfeld’s famous line), but are you planning to use your considerable writing skills to cover other stories, namely ones that don’t have a “Muslim” connection?
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
If I were a Freshman Congressperson… If I were a freshman member of Congress, and up for reelection without much time to make a mark,
I would probably be grabbing onto any particular issue I could get my hands on to raise my public profile and get my name out there in the media. I would probably not care much whether the issue was real or imagined. so long as it would get me press. Use a Q’uran? fine. Pump up a small group of atheists? fine. Back an impeachment everyone knows will go nowhere but will get me in the news on a slow weekend? great.
So what’s the big deal if Ellison does it too? Just means he has a good PR person.
Freshmen congresspersons hardly ever get to trumpet something substantive they have done, so I say give him a break and consider his situation.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 7:13 pm
The whole picture Ike:
Let me ask you a question: since my cabbies story featured the Amish community, and my Ellison story featured the VP, and probably a non-Muslim expert, would you characterize them as having a “Christian/Jewish/or whatever other faith connection”?
Interestingly enough, the words “Muslim” or “Islam” didn’t appear on my Ellison story. Conversely, check other publications’ version of the same story, and, at times, the headline would say something like “Bush like Hitler Says First Muslim in Congress.”
Bottom line is that the Ellison story and the cabbies’ story have no “Muslim” connection as you would rather say, though, as in with every other story the players happened to be persons of certain faith-and that’s not what the story about.
As long as there’s a local angle to every story, I’d be glad to be part of it, irrespective of the player(s’) place of worship.
You might be interested to know, however, that of the 7 stories I wrote this week, the other 5 did feature “Christian” and “Jewish” persons-quite disproportionately.
Now, I’ll let you decide how you would classify them?
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
All paid up and filed on time? This must mean Ellison has all his misdeamenors cleared up with the City of Mpls and the state of MN, eh?
I laughed out loud when I first heard Ellison had co-sponsored this. Apparently the other dems arent aware of Keiths sparkling clean record.
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 4:45 am
Ellison is a far left democrat who is charading a thoughtful lawmaker he admits to not being practical…. he is participating in another endless demoncrat witchhunt….. to sign on with Dennis Kocinich …..who is a lunatic…..speaks volumes of Keith (parking tickets??..i do not have to pay any stinking parking tickets) Ellison's maniacal mindset
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
Hold your horses Before you name-call people, you must respect Ellison's right as a congressman to scrutinize the executive branch (or legislative-whichever Cheney decides to be part of)
Comment posted July 14, 2007 @ 8:24 pm
Pigeon-hold? Abdi,
In my view, you are one of the best, if not the best writer, at the Minnesota Monitor.
However (and you may have known this “however” was coming), it appears that you are being pigeon-hold into becoming a permanent member of the “Muslim” beat.
Taking a look at your recent stories (e.g., cabbies at the airport, Ellison), there is a sort of “Muslim” connection to all of them. Not that there is anything wrong with that (to pick up Jerry Seinfeld's famous line), but are you planning to use your considerable writing skills to cover other stories, namely ones that don't have a “Muslim” connection?
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 8:29 am
If I were a Freshman Congressperson… If I were a freshman member of Congress, and up for reelection without much time to make a mark,
I would probably be grabbing onto any particular issue I could get my hands on to raise my public profile and get my name out there in the media. I would probably not care much whether the issue was real or imagined. so long as it would get me press. Use a Q'uran? fine. Pump up a small group of atheists? fine. Back an impeachment everyone knows will go nowhere but will get me in the news on a slow weekend? great.
So what's the big deal if Ellison does it too? Just means he has a good PR person.
Freshmen congresspersons hardly ever get to trumpet something substantive they have done, so I say give him a break and consider his situation.
Comment posted July 15, 2007 @ 2:13 pm
The whole picture Ike:
Let me ask you a question: since my cabbies story featured the Amish community, and my Ellison story featured the VP, and probably a non-Muslim expert, would you characterize them as having a “Christian/Jewish/or whatever other faith connection”?
Interestingly enough, the words “Muslim” or “Islam” didn't appear on my Ellison story. Conversely, check other publications' version of the same story, and, at times, the headline would say something like “Bush like Hitler Says First Muslim in Congress.”
Bottom line is that the Ellison story and the cabbies' story have no “Muslim” connection as you would rather say, though, as in with every other story the players happened to be persons of certain faith-and that's not what the story about.
As long as there's a local angle to every story, I'd be glad to be part of it, irrespective of the player(s') place of worship.
You might be interested to know, however, that of the 7 stories I wrote this week, the other 5 did feature “Christian” and “Jewish” persons-quite disproportionately.
Now, I'll let you decide how you would classify them?
Comment posted July 16, 2007 @ 7:10 am
All paid up and filed on time? This must mean Ellison has all his misdeamenors cleared up with the City of Mpls and the state of MN, eh?
I laughed out loud when I first heard Ellison had co-sponsored this. Apparently the other dems arent aware of Keiths sparkling clean record.
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