Rocky Sick

Who else is sick of Rocky Anderson? He used to just bug people here in Utah on a local or state level with his inane plans (i.e. carry a little orange flag with you when crossing the street) and I would imagine that he'll probably come out with a plan to make all Salt Lakers wear nametags before too long. Anyway, while he was always a bit kooky, he took it up a notch with the beginning of the fifth year of the war in Iraq. He made a extremely repetitive and boring (say "That is not an American value," repeated 50 times) speech at City Hall at the head of a protest rally the day of the anniversary and then he went on O'Reilly last night to promote his "impeach President Bush" campaign.

Why does he want President Bush impeached? Because he is defying the International Criminal Court for one, never mind that the US is not a signatory on the ICC - for this kind of reason. Can you imagine having the President of the United States dragged in front of a kangaroo court for prosecuting a war? We might as well torch the Constitution right now (because the Constitution...Is not an American value - thanks Rocky). Sure the Constitution says in Article VI that treaties are also considered the law of the land, but if a signed treaty goes against the Constitution, what says it? I say Constitution trumps treaty, especially one so ill-concieved and boneheaded as the Kellogg-Briand Pact. It renounces war as an instrument of foreign policy. I assume that means without (today) the UN's approval - which I think President Bush actually got, what with the 14 resolutions passed threatening military action against Iraq for repeated violations of the end of the Persian Gulf War. He also mentions the abuse of Executive power, i.e. by letting Congress authorize a war against Iraq and then prosecuting it to his discretion and allowing Congress to send through spending bills for it. Hmm, I wonder where it says the President can't do that. I do know that the Constitution says the President is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, which does mean he can utilitze them as his own personal army (hence the whole CIC business) if he wants to.

Second bone to pick against Rocky. In Daily Kos' transcript, Rocky mentions 650,000 deaths attributable to the invasion of Iraq. 650,000? Did he get that number from a mental patient? Perhaps he pulled it from his butt, because that overestimates even the high numbers from say Iraq Body Count, which has some system of doing things instead of just pulling a WAG from the sky. He's only off by a factor of 10 here.

Third: he represents the city of Salt Lake. He's paid to help the city and run it. Is participating in peace rallies every day from here to Bangalore doing that? I don't think so. Shut your yap and govern your city. If you want to be the US' official peacenik to the United Nations, feel free to resign your post and do that. Otherwise, do your job.