From TPMMuckraker:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) plans to introduce a Constitutional amendment in the coming months to impose limits on the president’s near absolute pardon power, he told an NYU-Harpers forum on justice in the post-Bush era Thursday night.

Nadler, who two weeks ago introduced a resolution demanding President Bush not issue ‘pre-emptive’ pardons of officials in his administration, said his amendment would bar presidents from pardoning members of their own administration for official acts.

Good luck with that, pal. The Founders were way ahead of you, but did you listen? NOOOOOOOooooooooooo.

Let’s let Dan Froomkin take it from here:

The Framers, ever sensitive to the need for checks and balances, recognized the potential for abuse of the pardon power.

According to a Judiciary Committee report drafted in the aftermath of the Watergate crisis: “In the [Constitutional] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to ‘pardon crimes which were advised by himself‘ or, before indictment or conviction, ‘to stop inquiry and prevent detection.’ James Madison responded:

“[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty. . . .

“Madison went on to [say] contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected.”

Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence is exactly the scenario that James Madison imagined two hundred years ago. Where was Rep. Nadler when that happened? Where was the rest of Congress? It was a crime committed in broad daylight and should have triggered an impeachment investigation all by itself.

So, Congressman Nadler, if you think the President might abuse his power through the Constitutionally mandated power of the pardon, then — godammit — impeach him for what he’s already done. What are you waiting for? Had you done it then, you might have stopped him from pardoning the torturers at the CIA, something you’re afraid he’s going to do now.

All impeachment does is indict him for a crime you think he might have committed. Next stop: the Senate, where he’ll be put on trial. You already have that power right now. You don’t have to invent new powers. You don’t have to pull them out of your ass.

You’re like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who was shocked to discover that the answer was right there all along.

But apparently you have such a poor appreciation for the very Constitution you are sworn to uphold, that you don’t get it. Well screw you. If you’d have done your job in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this position.

I’ll say it once again: the greatest, most scandalous disgrace of the Bush/Cheney years will likely be that Congress did not impeach and convict them. Certainly not the rubber-stamp Republican Congress and (god forbid) not the Democratic one.

Some day, a president more heinous than this one will grab even more power because he’ll know that Bush & Cheney got away with it and he will too. And future Americans will look back at us and wonder what the fuck we were doing.