Impeaching for Political Incorrectness

Some Democrats want to impeach a federal judge because during his tenure as a legal advisor to President Bush he wrote some of the memos that justified the enhanced interrogation techniques (from Ben Smith):

John Podesta, the head of a left-leaning think tank who ran the Obama transition team, is calling for the impeachment of Jay Bybee, a federal judge and former Bush administration official who wrote one of the “torture memos” made public last week.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers (D-Mich.), Podesta says that since he has "issued opinions that violate the Constitution and concealed relevant aspects of his legal views and professional conduct from the Senate, Bybee has neither the legal nor moral authority to sit in judgment of others."

Podesta becomes one of the most prominent Democrats to push for Bybee’s impeachment. The former Clinton chief of staff runs the influential Center for American Progress, and is close to the Obama administration. Obama has left open the door to prosecutions of the authors of the memos that authorized harsh interrogation techniques, even as the president has tried to tamp down calls for a congressional commission to investigate the matter.

The move suggests that the administration sees this as a way to take a specific and concrete action without opening the door to either a truth commission or prosecution of former Bush officials. It's also a middle road that's unlikely to appease either side.

The Supreme Court has at least four members whose opinions I disagree with. Can we start by impeaching them first?

Bybee may be the only target they can really go after, but even then the case is weak. Legal opinion cannot be prosecuted just because someone else disagrees with their interpretation of the Constitution or existing law.

Podesta is just another former Clinton crony looking for a way to get his name in the paper.