Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

Strange that this is the scandal that’s bringing them down… not lying us into the war in the first place, or outing a CIA agent, or botching the Katrina response, or the poor treatment of wounded veterans, or wiretapping us without warrants, or the new FBI scandal, or any of the other dozens of issues… no, it’s this one. 
I do admit that it has all the hallmarks of the Bush Administration… cronyism, manipulating the federal government for political purposes, law-breaking, secret Patriot Act provisions vesting power in the executive branch… the perfect storm, if you will.  Oh, and stonewalling the investigation and refusing to allow testifying under oath.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy is threatening subpoenas if they aren’t under oath, saying anything less is “Nothing”.  In the meantime, Tony Snow perfectly summarizes the White House’s understanding of checks and balances: “The executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn’t have oversight ability.”  Right… Congress is really more of an advisory committee… and the Constitution is more like guidelines, really.

So what to do?  Leahy will clearly issue congressional subpoenas if the aids don’t testify.  But what happens if the White House refuses to comply?  The courts won’t get involved; they usually remind Congress that they have a remedy and for this inter-branch dispute and the courts won’t act just because Congress is too chickenshit to use it.  That remedy, of course, is impeachment.  Article 3 of Nixon’s impeachment that passed the House Judiciary Committee clearly made the point that failure to comply with congressional subpoenas is an impeachable offense.  Whether or not we should start with Bush [I vote not: go after the underlings first] is irrelevant.  We need to find out the truth, and if they won’t offer it willingly we will force them to tell it under the penalty of the law.  Hopefully the Bush Administration relents or Mr. 30% could find himself in a real pickle… or choking on a really large pretzel.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Share This

So like I said, I’m going to be blogging more. Really. Honest. I promise.

At the moment, I’m also messing with the site template, including an expanded blogroll. If you want me to add you, just ask and I will. I intend to eventually have all the sites I read added, along with requests.

That’s all for now.

Share This