Unless impeachment investigations and a deauthorization and/or defunding of our Iraq "foreign policy" - however it can be creatively passed, or at least stalemated between the Houses of Congress to demonstrate what's at stake beyond the presidency - are undertaken before next year, the Democratic Party (via Congress) has waived any claim to "Constitutional" governance.

And the Republican Party's membership in Congress will - enthusiastically - reclaim the Constitutional "Article I" mantle (on behalf of their political party, never mind the best interests of the nation) the instant a Democrat is in the White House. With at least 41 Republican members still holding seats in the Senate next year - a more likely than not scenario, given the national (media-fueled) obsession with the presidential race to the near-exclusion of all else - the inherent powers of the Congress and Senate will suddenly be the rallying cry of those opposed to the new Democratic president. Particularly when it comes to ending/defunding the occupation of Iraq and the appointment of new Supreme Court justices.

Only it won't be the Democrats doing the Constitutional rallying, on principle or otherwise - their chance is now running out, and they won't get another, if they continue to put the presidency on a pedestal to be worshipped, and kneel at its feet as a party, and thus as a Congress, as the Republicans have so destructively done under Bush. Without impeachment of the most dishonest, bad faith, abusive presidency in our nation's history, the Democratic Party - no matter the caliber of Obama as president - will have ceded any claim to having honored their "solemn" oaths of office to support the Constitution as federal legislators.

Most of the most egregious facts of the Bush presidency, without impeachment hearings, are likely to be most widely revealed under an Obama presidency (when the media no longer needs to cover for Bush), and federal Republicans will quickly point the finger at the (Democratic) powers-that-be to avoid blame, with an eye on the next, pending election.

This is a vicious, two-party-fed, two-party-played system, with our nation and its Constitution used as the punching bag.

Harry Reid, 5/22/08, petulant because he was unexpectedly prevented by a Republican from rubberstamping through the Senate dozens of Bush appointees in exchange for four Democrats, just before the Memorial Day recess:

Mr. REID. Mr. President, one reason we waited until 20 till 8 tonight to try to complete the work of the Senate is that I had a number of conversations today with my staff trying to work out nominations, and we worked something out. I spoke with the President's Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten. I have always found him to be a very pleasant man to work with.

[snip]

We have a number of military officers we agreed to, some 50 in number. In exchange for this, the Democrats were going to get three or four people.

[snip]

Tonight, we had about 80 we were going to approve--military, ambassadors, a Cabinet Secretary. We got an objection about some inconsequential appointment in comparison to all these, important to the person involved, I am sure. That is not the way we should be doing business.

[snip]

There will be a Cabinet Secretary not approved, there will be 18 ambassador positions which would not be filled, all because of the Republican minority.

[snip]

Seven and a half years of division, not unification.

I am going to do my very best in the next 7 months in my position to do everything I can to work with the White House to try to get things done, but this is an example of what we get--no cooperation, no ability to try to unify us. - Harry Reid

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2008_record&page=S4848&position=all

Harry Reid uses the disgust and frustration of Americans with this tail-chasing, seesaw of a two-party-only system as misleading cover for doing the bidding of the poltiical party most willing to bully. And then calls it "bipartisanship." Reid, a party man above all, is incapable of thinking in a non-partisan, non-party fashion, as is most of the politically-engaged nation, after so many decades of indoctrination and media manipulation.

And now Nancy Pelosi, tired of pretending that the Democrats actually stand for something when Democratic Senators clearly don't, is giving in to Reid the way she's given in to Bush:

The Senate's mystifying refusal to stand and fight — even against the most unpopular lame-duck president of all time — has begun to spill over into the House. Nancy Pelosi may have become speaker of the House by promising an end to "blank checks" for Bush's war in Iraq, but she now says she has given up on her colleagues in the Senate. Although funding for the war is once again up for reauthorization, Pelosi is done asking her party to peg funding to a timeline for withdrawal.

.

"It's not going anyplace," she says sternly. "We know that. Every time we passed one of these bills with the conditions and the deadlines, the Senate did nothing. So I said to my members after the last time, 'I'm never going to ask you to vote for one of these bills again' — no matter how good it is."

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20961789/the_senate_caves/print

This year, and for the last seven years, at least, both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, controlled by party leadership, have behaved as though Mr. Goldfarb's rewriting of the Constitution is reality - which makes it effectively reality absent enforcement of that Constitution; enfocement which, at this level, can only come from Congress asserting its own prerogatives and appealing to the Judicial Branch as needed.

Read more about Congress's war powers, and War Powers Act, from this superb April 10th hearing:

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/41756.pdf

And listen to the insights of Fritz Schwarz, Jr. (General Counsel for the Church Committee) and Lou Fisher and others, here:

http://www.charleshamiltonhouston.org/Events/Event.aspx?linkback=homepage&id=100072