PRESIDENT: The perils of power

The fact that your boss has the right to fire you makes it self-evident that you are not equal in power to your boss. Also self-evident is that when the framers of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to impeach (fire) the president, they gave Congress greater power. The Constitution was written to get rid of the presumptive powers of the King of England: the Framers did not want to install an all-powerful president-king.

Another clear indication of the power of Congress is oversight of the Executive Branch. The framers did not give the Executive Branch a co-equal power to fire legislators or to investigate them.

I am a drafted, disabled Vietnam veteran so my life experience includes an injustice caused when President Johnson cherry-picked the Gulf of Tonkin radar echoes to create a false impression that our Navy had been attacked by North Vietnam. George W. Bush did essentially the same thing to get us into Iraq with the cherry-picked notion of weapons of mass destruction, even though U.N. inspectors were free to roam at will looking for those weapons. Now the drums of war are beating again with Iran. Be cautious when you support a president who assumes the powers of war that were given to Congress.

JOHN NEILS

Hauser Lake