Presidential Misconduct: Some Historical Perspective

National Review ^ | December 5, 2019 | David Harsanyi

[karpov]

This week, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee trotted out a trio of dispassionate legal experts to explain why the impeachment of Donald Trump was justified. ... Once Gerhardt argued that Trump’s conduct was “worse than the misconduct of any prior president,” we no longer had any intellectual obligation to take him seriously on the topic.

...

...

In 1942, the president of the United States signed an executive order that allowed him to unilaterally intern around 120,000 Americans citizens of Japanese descent. Not only was the policy deliberately racist, it amounted to a full-bore attack on about half the Constitution that he had sworn to uphold. Such an attack was a specialty of FDR’s, despite the all the hagiographies written about his imperial presidency.

Woodrow Wilson — who regularly said things like, “a Negro’s place is in the corn field” — didn’t merely re-segregate the civil service, personally firing more than a dozen supervisors for the sin of being black; he first pushed for, and then oversaw the enactment of, the Sedition Act. Wilson threw dissenters and political adversaries into prison, instructed the postmaster to refuse delivery of literature he deemed unpatriotic, and a created an unconstitutional civilian police force that targeted Americans for political dissent.

So, all of what Wilson did was “worse.”

Sorry to say, but despite their great achievements, both John Adams and Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, the latter without any congressional approval. Surely, deep down, even those who act as if Russian social-media ads can topple the republic believe that denying citizens their fundamental rights of due process is a more serious offense than President Trump’s rhetoric and actions?

We can go on and on. Andrew Jackson ignored courts and laws and used his power to ethnically cleanse lands

[karpov]

The author later devotes a paragraph to Obama's illegal acts.

[Fido969]

Dispassionate? Really?

[MrEdd]

Now that was a stinking heap of intellectual manure.

[PA-RIVER]

Suggestions for articles of impeachment:

1. Beating Hillary in the 2017 election.
2. Exposing Joe Biden’s bribery with China and Ukraine.
3. Forcing Obama to provide a birth certificate.
4. Refusing to die and give up.
5. Having white skin and testicles while being heterosexual.

What did I miss?

[marktwain]

Now that was a stinking heap of intellectual manure.

What did you disagree with?

Seemed like a straightforward list of abuses by former presidents, all of them much more egregious than Trump.

Notice the Republican was forced from office, but not the Democrats?

[patriotspride]

On the the republicans went through a similar list during the Nadler Inquisition.

He should have been cross examining Nadler on this, not the “ intellectual lightweight book readers” the Dems chose as witnesses , minus Turley..

[marktwain]

What did I miss?

Climate change denier.

Capitalist.

Pro-American.

Interfering with Chinese rise to Hegemony.

Nationalist.

Just a few suggestions...

[foreverfree]

bump

[MrEdd]

Speaking Japanese is not a race.
The Japanese internment happened because unlike the German language the United States did not have a vast pool of Japanese speakers to monitor the population for espionage.

So yes, I will mock the foundational premise upon which a large part of this dreck is built that speaking Japanese is a race.

I don't believe that this was mere ignorance, its leftist propaganda which relies on the dismal state of American education to be given any credence of any sort.

[redshawk]

Missed...

Being a self made billionaire.
Married a wonderful woman.
Loves America.
Defends the Military.
Builds the wall....

This list could get really long
Need excel spreadsheet. ...

[wintertime]

Blonde and blue-eyed.

[PA-RIVER]

And so it seems professor Turly was inaccurate when he said it's a thin record for impeaching Trump.

[PA-RIVER]

Climate change denier, thats a good one.
He is endangering all life on the planet.

Could we summarize that as “Has attempted mass murder”? That way we have crime thats on the books?

A crime against humanity?

[PA-RIVER]

He owns several golf courses. We could probably use that as evidence of “premeditated global warming, with intent to kill”.

[redshawk]

I think that the word impeach has lost its meaning just like racist. Both words have been so grossly abused that they have become meaningless. We now have the ability to render impeachment on my boss for reprimanding me on my constant tardiness.

[Thank You Rush]

When I turned on FOX about 9 pm, Bill Hemmer was interviewing that slime ball Swalwell from Contra Costa County, CA. Bill didn’t take it easy on him and did push back on the slime’s answers. He would be a slime ball even if he never opened his mouth. He has the face that should have gotten beat up on the playground of elementary school.

He said they WANT the president to get a FAIR HEARING.....WOW! You sure could have fooled us.

Said if Nunes is unhappy about his phone calls being revealed, he shouldn’t be talking to “indicted” people. I guess he meant Russians. He answered Bill’s questions with, “a better question would be”! Another FOX host about a month or so ago when he got that as a “reply” to a question said, “That’s not my question and it’s my show.”

[robowombat]

The author does devote a concise but accurate paragraph on BHO’s misconduct. Over all this is a weak piece spun off quickly in response to an editor's request. There is a vast deal of real illegality by several president's that goes far beyond Woodrow Wilson sharing popular racist attitudes a bout blacks. The most blatant, I have found, are detailed in ‘Grant Under Fire: An Exposé of Generalship & Character in the American Civil War’ by Joseph A Rose. The title may Generalship and Character in the Civil War’ but a large part of the book is devoted to misdeeds and questionable behavior of Grant in the White House and after. Grant seems to have personally operated a very large obstruction of justice operation to protect his friend and secretary Col. Orville Babcock as well as others to both protect friends and allies and cover up just how extensive the ‘Whiskey Tax Scandal’ was. Richard Nixon's ‘impeachable offenses whither into innocuousy in comparison. However, there has never been as brazen a powergrab in US political history as what is being attempted with DJT.’