Did anyone NOT see this coming after another Democratic Congressional Leadership very special “sternly worded letter” to Mukasey (a man that would never have been Attorney General if Chuck Schumer and Diane Feinstein had any sense of dignity) about subpoenas being ignored by Miers and Rove?
Did anyone NOT think that the House Democrats would ultimately waver for a possible cave on telecom immunity after Reid let Rockefeller’s telecom immunity bill pass the Senate, despite the fact that nearly 60% of people are against telecom immunity?
Did anyone NOT think that the RNC would decide to just stop looking for the emails that were erased on purpose, despite the fact that they were ORDERED to be turned over to Congress?
And while we are at it, does anyone think that a republican Congress would have at least pursued inherent contempt against Rove and Miers if they were Democrats? Or that Mukasey would have been confirmed (hint, think Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood and the horrific crime of an undocumented household worker)? Or that impeachment charges against Mukasey would not be pursued for blowing off Congress about waterboarding, illegal wiretapping or ignoring subpoenas?
Is Congress dead?
Back in 2006, the cry was “we can’t do anything because we don’t have a majority”. Then, “we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate” was the cry. And then “we don’t have a veto proof majority” was the cry. And now, there isn’t even an attempt to do anything constructive until 2009 – with the hope and assumption that a Democrat will be in the White House.
Way to do your jobs, Congressional Democratic majorities and leadership.
Does Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid and others in leadership positions realize the following:
- If McCain becomes President, he will ignore Congress much the same way as Bush has.
- If and when the republicans are back in the majority, they will NOT hesitate to use whatever tools they have at their disposal to neuter a Democratic President or a Democratic Congressional minority.
- That they are setting a horrific and dangerous precedent by letting all of these criminal actions slide in the name of “hoping for a bigger majority in the future”.
- That they are aiding and abetting all of this lawbreaking – complicit in the actions of Mukasey, Gonzales and Ashcroft as well as Rove, Bush, Rice, Cheney, Goodling, Rumsfeld and all others who have lied under oath, and
- That they are breaking their oath to uphold the Constitution as well as their promise to those who they are supposed to serve, and
At this point, there are three options. Pursue impeachment, pursue inherent contempt or effectively render Congress as meaningless. If they do not take option one or option two, then they might as well resign and let those who are actually interested in the Constitution do their jobs for them.
This is a disgrace – how anyone in any leadership position can’t see (or thinks it is a good idea to ignore) the consequences of their inactions is beyond me. And if the reasoning is, as my good friend thereisnospoon says, “cynical manipulation” for political gain, then how is that different from the “party before country” that we have seen from the republican party?
To bank on enough people not knowing all that is being done (or being allowed to be done) in the hopes of convincing enough people to put more Democrats in Congress so they can get bigger majorities is the height of disingenuousness. It is self serving and renders any argument of what the Bush administration is or isn’t doing moot.
Congress has the power. It has the power of the purse to stop spending over $200,000 EVERY MINUTE in Iraq. It has the power to pursue inherent contempt (as Kagro X has pointed out so very well). It has the power of oversight, and to impeach.
Leadership has made a calculated decision to not use any of those powers, and to let tens of billions be wasted, hundreds of US troops lives be lost, thousands of US troops lives be forever altered, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people’s lives ruined, to let laws be broken with impunity; all in the name of “if you just give us more power, it won’t be that way anymore”.
To that I say, bullshit.
You have a job. You have been given tools to perform that job. Use them or let someone else who actually cares about this country and the Constitution use them.
But don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining and I should buy an umbrella from you too.