Letters to the Editor

• Going the contempt route

  [Read the article: Bush's magical shield from criminal prosecution]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  might ultimately lead to forced resignations -- or worse. That process can go all the way to the top. An Attorney General can be held in Contempt of Congress. So can a Vice President or a President.

  It's not certain right now that contempt is going to be pursued with vigor, or even, given Bush's latest usurpations, commands, and emanations of his will, that it will be pursued at all. Inherent contempt does not appear to be the favored method in any case, and we may never see Harriet Miers brought to justice in the well of the House. If statutory contempt is unavailable due to refusal by the Justice Department to prosecute, quite possibly nothing will happen except stalemate. And the Busheviks win any stalemate.

  Dems should have been assembling a case for years now. They haven't been; anybody who's suggested such a thing has been rigorously shunned (cf: McKinney, Cynthia; Feingold, Russ) The oversight hearings going on strike a lot of observers as scattershot, driven by current news stories or old grievances, and leading almost nowhere. There is little coordination between the various committees, and Bushevik witnesses (who should be held in contempt immediately) are routinely allowed to get away with extraordinary memory lapses and outright lies. There have been no consequences, and there is little sign that either house is going to invoke serious consequences -- although there has been plenty of bluster.

  Congress is indeed moving slowly and deliberately, but so far there is no sign of a plan or a coordinated approach to reversing the extraordinary power grabs the White House has gotten away with. Congress is, in many ways, at a standstill. But the White House is not, far from it, as the provocations and usurpations seem to be increasing in number and velocity.

  The plodding slowness of Congress in the face of this onslaught of White House chicanery is only partly institutional. The White House, clearly, wants a confrontation, lucha libre, because they are all but certain they will win anything that goes to court. And given some current indications, they could be right. The Congress, clearly, does not want a direct confrontation with the White House, especially if they think they will lose in court.

  They are reluctant to the point of refusal to use their inherent power to compel the White House to do anything.

  They may have a clever plan and a hidden agenda that they are carefully implementing, but we've been hearing about that for many years now, and it's always proved to be... a fantasy. There is no clever plan. There is no hidden agenda. With these guys, WYSIWYG. Period.

  Things could change, of course, but it looks like nothing is going to happen before the August recess, and unless there is some movement over the break, it's hard to see how things will be much different in September than they are now.

  Permalink Friday, July 20, 2007 09:24 PM

• Per bucky re: Bush Toast

  [Read the article: Bush's 2001 condemnation of Russia's human rights abuses]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  A Volvo in Santa Barbara? There are poor people there? O.M.G!

  Permalink Saturday, July 21, 2007 06:22 AM