( – promoted by buhdydharma )
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.
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BTW – has the wee mollusk arrived? I’m so turned around on times/dates – for all I know, you’ve got an oyster colony at this point!
Senate, and the cry of these gutless Democrats would be
“we can’t do anything because don’t have complete control of Congress.”
Yes. Pelosi has my vote as the most ineffective Speaker in the history of the House. After the 100 hours flurry, what has this Congress accomplished that benefits the American people? What has this Congress done to stop the psychotic unitary executive branch? It is embarrassing beyond belief. It is bullshit and dumbshit. The blue dogs have become the tail that wags the house.
I don’t believe they are “incompetent”. I don’t think “incapable” applies either.
And I don’t see them as “unwilling” to do what it takes to get done what they want to get done. I think that they are doing exactly what they intended to do since bfore the 2006 midterms, and are accomplishing exactly what they want to accomplish.
I think they are treating the whole country with the same insulting assumption that people are stupid that was so succesful for the repugs for so long.
They are operating with the confidence that people are more afraid of republicans that of democrats. As if the label makes any difference anymore.
And it is working. There will be a Democratic President and a Democratic Congressional Majority after the 2008 elections. Without the Democratic controlled Congress having had to live up to the platform and promises they ran on in 2006.
They can hardly contain their contempt for voters now…
Just wait till they have total power…
I first saw this nice diary on kos–and got pissed that many saw it as an opportunity to talk about pets.(my username there is melvynny) Americans have been dumbed down, numbed down, even those that go to liberal sites.
As to Pelosi/Reid, I doubt they are double agents only because bushies aren’t competent enough to hire the perfect fools. That the “good” congressmen don’t overthrow their leadership proves how few good congressmen there are.
My understanding of the whole affair is that before the ’06 elections, when “issues” were discussed by the administration with members of Congress, those members included the ranking Democratic members of the various committees. By having prior knowledge of the various misdeeds, felonious and capital, these “leaders” are complicit in the crimes of this administration, which would include war crimes of many different flavors. By arrogantly believing that the People are so ignorant and uninvolved, these “leaders” think they can stonewall and eventually the public will forget and go back to the Brittany Watch, leaving them safe.
It makes me want to puke.
I think the word we’re looking for is chickenshit.
Pelosi has said privately, we hear, that House Dems will do nothing on Iraq until next year, because when they try and fail they “look weak.”
They look worse than that when they do nothing.
At least Harry Reid, having gotten nowhere with a Feingold withdrawal plan this week, says they will try again next month when the appropriations bill comes up.
House Dem “leadership” is a disgrace.
I’m laying long odds on ‘meaningless’. Any takers? 🙂
P.S. Looking forward to seeing the clammys at NRN.
I think there is a cancer in our “governing class.”
The complete failure of accountability, shown no place more than the “lets go in the basement and print some money” economic stimulus plan. Other countries are laughing at us now. This explains the weakness of the dollar.