Impeachment in the Air?
Another scholar weighs in.

Another voice expressing outrage and hinting at impeachment is Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors. To the question,"Bush and spying; Good for America?" He answers with a resounding No:

George Bush is a study in relativism. He has long claimed unchecked authority after he declared a "war on terror." He became a maximum leader subject to few, if any, legal limitations. Repeatedly, the White House has engaged in a type of reverse engineering. Rather than explain the scope of lawful conduct and develop operations within those lines, the president routinely creates operations and then asks lawyers to conform the law to them.

In his recent speech defending his eavesdropping policy, Bush explained that "right after September 11, I knew we were fighting a different kind of war," and so he solicited different ways to gather information. Once he decided on the operation, his legal staff proceeded in justifying the operation as a legal matter. The problem is that the operation called for officials to commit a clear crime under federal law: intercepting telephone calls in the USA without a court order.

Bush's claim of inherent authority to circumvent federal laws is virtually identical to the argument made by Nixon in his model of the "Imperial Presidency." Over time, Bush has combined a relativistic view of the law with an imperial model of the presidency. Also as Nixon did, Bush surrounded himself with lawyers — such as former attorney general John Ashcroft and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who told him what he wanted to hear: that once he declared a "war" on terror, he vested himself with maximum powers and was free to use virtually any means to achieve his chosen ends.

[ . . . . ]

I testified in the congressional hearings in favor of impeaching Clinton and thought that he should have been convicted for lying under oath. Yet, it is far more dangerous to be a legal relativist than a moral relativist. It is unclear what a legal relativist means when he swears to "uphold and defend the Constitution."

Principle is rarely convenient in politics, but it remains the dividing line between true statespersons and mere politicians. When it comes to law and war, everything is not relative. At least not for those defending the rule of
law.

There do seem to be new members joining the impeachment chorus every day. Let me add my voice, although I expect you already knew that.