Inside the Bubble

...From my sample—of 60 or so—I can say that nine out of ten were very, very angry...

...Almost every witness claimed that Bush was guilty of dragging the nation to war through lies and deceptions...

...So I’m left with a horrifying thought...

...Why talk about anything else, if you really think the president is guilty of starting a war for personal or frivolous reasons...

...It’s what I meant when I said the committee should recall that “the rest of the country is not necessarily in this same bubble in which people think it is reasonable to describe the president as if he were Caligula...

...Some told me to “get down from your Ivory Tower,” apparently under the impression that universities are dominated by Republican snobs...

...No one was interested in arguing past any such obvious objections...

...He isn’t a member of the Judiciary Committee, but he got himself invited as a witness...

...No one bothered to explain what motive could have impelled the president to lie...

...Wouldn’t he fear to be found out, if he knew there were no WMDs to be found in Iraq...

...There were four such congressmen in an initial panel...

...I’m mad at them, too...

...At least I didn’t ask these people to contact me...

...Yet it doesn’t seem to have the punch you would expect, even with those who invoke this claim...

...Their main point seems to have attained the status of a ritual incantation—“Bush lied...

...BUSH IS WORSE THAN CALIGULA...

...And “I didn’t mean to say you don’t have the right to your own opinions...

...The congressman was cheered when he entered the hearing room (hand in hand with his 30-year-old wife...

...It was no honor to be there in the circumstances...

...There isn’t time to mount an impeachment in the few months remaining in Bush’s term...

...The event was more accurately described by one of the Republican committee members as “impeachment lite...

...He lied...

...They would hold up their books for the C-SPAN camera at regular intervals...

...To my surprise, I found that many people offered reasonably polite replies, thanking me for responding to their messages and trying to respond to the one or two points I had offered them...

...If they were really going to initiate impeachment, they wouldn’t have launched the effort on a Friday afternoon and wouldn’t have received such limited attention from the media...

...Was it reasonable to expect that everything claimed or predicted by intelligence estimates would later prove totally correct...

...They will settle into one of those domesticated cults, mixing apocalyptic claims with genial demeanor: “The End of the World is Upon Us—Please Give Generously...

...He tried to stay above the partisan fray by offering the same analysis of standards for impeachment that he’d provided to the committee in 1998, when it debated bringing charges against President Clinton...

...You might think of the hearings as a gesture of appreciation for the Kucinich supporters...

...Quite a few of them wanted me to know about their educational attainments, more wanted me to know how carefully they have watched congressional hearings, many more wanted me to know about the books and websites they have studied to reach their conclusions...

...The hearings were designed to showcase arguments of Bush critics—seven in all, in addition to the four congressmen who testifi ed...

...Dennis Kucinich was one of the star attractions...

...I made this point in my initial statement...

...My Black- Berry started buzzing even while I was sitting at the witness table...

...But I found the whole circus somewhat instructive...

...Even our darkest obsessions may end with “Have a nice day...

...Jeremy Rabkin is a professor of law at George Mason University...

...Stephen Presser of Northwestern University Law School, a distinguished scholar of constitutional history, was the other witness invited by the Republicans...

...Several wiser or busier colleagues had already found reasons why they couldn’t be there...

...The minority was allowed only two witnesses...

...The C-SPAN audience was enraged...

...won’t go away when Bush leaves the White House...

...Kucinich then arranged to come back and participate in a second panel of outside experts...

...Bush lied” is now an article of faith...

...The hearings brought out a whole gallery of Code Pink enthusiasts who, with giggling excitement, talked of the event among themselves as “the impeachment hearings...

...Conyers didn’t try very hard to keep the crowd quiet...

...It was of clinical interest...

...I was one of two witnesses invited by the Republican members to testify at the House Judiciary Committee’s hearings on “executive power and constitutional limitations” on July 25...

...No one noticed...

...One dismissed me and mine as “Illuminati scum...

...He called them “visitors” but they were more like clients or patrons of the proceedings...

...Yes, said various respondents, good point...

...If you believe the president really told deliberate lies to take the country to war for personal or idiosyncratic reasons, you must believe the president behaved monstrously...

...More and more came my way over the next three days...

...Perhaps not a scientifi c sample, but it was as interesting as the “polls” they run on FOX or CNN where they ask viewers to “vote” on the question of the day...

...Certainly none made any reference to anything occurring on the ground in Iraq...

...Which, in a way, she is now...

...None of the witnesses seemed to notice...

...And to the end, the “visitors” provoked solemn reminders from Chairman John Conyers that they were breaking the rules by cheering, laughing, or hissing...

...They were angry at Bush, of course...

...But history wasn’t on the agenda this time, and Presser retreated to very brief answers...

...The acolytes of “Bush lied...

...Don’t call me crazy” was the usual point...

...A few wanted to share their views on the Jewish Question, ranting about “Wolfowitz” and “the Jewish neo-cons...

...If he didn’t know, should mistaken claims really be called “lies...

...But none of the Democratic witnesses—and none of the Democratic members of the committee— could keep their focus on the war...

...Not the best time to rehash old debates about what happened six years ago...

...Nothing has happened in recent months to give Democrats special reason to start impeachment proceedings now, when they failed to do so over the year and a half since they took control of Congress...

...BY JEREMY RABKIN I said the proceedings were “slightly demented...

...They were angry at me for remarks they interpreted as defending Bush...

...But, of course, quite a few couldn’t be seen as anything else...

...At one point, when Conyers told Cindy Sheehan she would have to leave if she didn’t stop shouting from the visitors section, he called her by name, as if she were a special constituent of his...

...The usual thing I pointed out was that, if they were angry at me for questioning impeachment, they should be more angry at Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama who had much more to do with the failure of this Congress to open serious impeachment proceedings...

...A few wanted to go back to the events of 9/11: “Basic physics and common sense” disprove the offi cial story that the Twin Towers were knocked down by a handful of terrorists in two airplanes...

...At least some of them were...

...He seemed embarrassed to be there...

...We went on for hours reviewing the possible illegality of executive privilege claims, detention policies at Guant?namo, and other issues of secondary rank...

...There was no real suspense, of course...

...They were most angry at me for speaking of them—the people so angry at Bush—as fi gures worthy of ridicule...

...From professorial habit (in an era when email has largely replaced offi ce hours), I made some response to every message...

...But they won’t become terrorists, either...

...Most had written books advocating impeachment or prosecution (or in one case, a truth-and-reconciliation commission...

...It went on for more than six hours, stretching into the late afternoon on a Friday, which only the most important hearings can do...

...In recent weeks, even formerly cautious voices in the Pentagon have started to talk about our impending “victory...

...They also wanted to talk about Bush’s abuse of executive privilege (by refusing to let White House personnel testify in congressional investigations), his abuse of signing statements (putting his own interpretation on enrolled bills while still signing them into law), allegations that he gave preference to Republicans at the Justice Department—charges that shouldn’t be in the same league with wrongly dragging the nation into war...

...Most Democrats on the committee showed up for at least part of the show...

...His claims have been shown to be false...

...But then there was a response...

...The seating for “visitors” (that is, the cheering section) was full to the end...

...He is, as I mentioned, a serious scholar...