Quote of the Day: The Distinction Between "Illegal" and "Criminal"

On his decision not to prosecute Monica Goodling and other Justice Department officials who illegally restricted career positions to Republican cronies (via NYTimes):

“Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute,” he said. “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” he said. As the inspector general’s report acknowledged, the hiring violations were such a case, because the wrongdoing violated federal civil service law, but not criminal law, he said.

Let's reduce this to syllogism form.

P1: Major Premise.The politically-motivated violation of civil service law constitutes a violation of everything we hold dear, as well as the basic anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws I would be seriously astounded if we did not have right now.

P2: Minor Premise. It is inconsistent with federal civil service law to apply a political litmus test when filling career positions in the civil service, i.e. the Justice Department.

P3: Fact. Attorney General Michael Mukasey will not prosecute the people who committed these "non-crime violations."

C3: Michael Mukasey is also a partisan tool and is committing an offense to ethics, if not to law (this syllogism is leading me to lose my faith in law).

Correct me if I'm wrong on P1; I really do hope I am, because I'd rather think the code of the law itself is incomplete (despite its obvious suggestion of the question, "WTF were the Civil Service reforms good for, then?"), rather than become depressed over the apparent lack of importance it has for our government.

He Shall Take Care That The Laws Be Faithfully Executed

Impeach Bush.

He has broken the law. He has probably broken many laws, but this cannot be brushed aside: President Intervened In Dispute Over Eavesdropping.

Specifically, the NSA wiretapping program was (is?) illegal. The Justice Department said so itself. Yet the President overruled the Justice Department and continued with the program. Even if he was outside of the law for only a few weeks (if we was outside the law before the program was "fixed" then it was a few years, not weeks, actually), that is more than long enough.

Spying on Americans was the reason Nixon was going to be impeached. I can think of no greater reason to get rid of a president then because she/he illegally violated the civil liberties of Americans.

(The impeachable offense aside, the conduct of the President, Andrew Card, and Alberto Gonzalez is absolutely despicable in this affair.)

If you think a president should not be impeached for what Bush did here (and I don't mean the spying program on its own, I mean conducting the spying program even after the Justice Department ruled it illegal), I can't imagine what you think a president should be impeached for.