Letters to the Editor
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Thank you, Mr. Blumenthal
I have really enjoyed your columns over the years.
Best of luck on your future endeavor.
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Bitter and Resentful
Yeah, Sid, good luck. You'll need it.
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We'll miss your pugnacious pugnaciousness
Good luck working for Hillary. I hope her position on Pakistan will amount to more than just blaming Bush for Musharraf.
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Not from the litter of likely heirs apparent we see today
If anything the gaggle of weak kneed DNC flunkies today are anything but that. The Crusade today is "Anything but Bush, but nothing alarming or radical."
I have yet to hear one solid plan or good idea from the lot of them. And they are our best and brightest hope? Anyway Sidney, as you well know the era of Constitutional law as the underpinnings of Executive power died a long time ago. It's all executive ruling, fiat. It's all regulatory law. The Constitution is, at best a talk show for the Bill of Rights crowd who get off endlessly screaming about guns, god and abortion and possibly the 4th amendment and to some extent the 8th . The rest of it is largely superfluous to the blogging classes and it always will be.
The next President which, unless the Dems do something typically stupid, will be a Dem won't leave Iraq, won't touch abortion or guns or god. At best they'll make some pronouncements about rendition but they'll leave Gitmo open. In the mean time we're headed for a Depression, gas will be $7 gal there will be food shortages, people will starve and freeze. But hey - we got a Dem and now some Arab expats won't get sent to Syria to be abused. We're great. We fucking rule!
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The Usurper and the Usurped
Missing here is an assessment of why the Democrats in Congress have failed to attempt even the most minor course corrections to this administration. In the case of Michael Mukasey we witnessed two Democrats, Sen.s Feinstein and Schumer, lamely defend then vote to confirm that nominee. In the case of illegal wiretapping we have a still as yet undecided number of Democrats ambivalent about that most obvious of overreaches. And these two examples occurred within the last 60 days. So how is it that we haven't seen anything approximating serious consideration of impeachment? If this president has usurped to himself powers that are not his constitutionally, and he has, is it not obvious what Congress must do? Perhaps Democrats don't believe an impeachment effort would succeed; is it not even worth an effort? They ought to consider the wonderment among future historians that this Congress remained so mysteriously silent in the face of an imperial, imperious coup.
Good luck to you, Sidney.
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The emasculation of Sidney Blumenthal
I have enjoyed your eloquent and fire-breathing columns. But now you are off to sniff at power again, leaving your balls at the door.
How long it takes to build respect; how quickly it is lost.
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ELECTION? WILL THERE BE ONE?
Sidney Blumenthal seems to think that we will have a real election to decide who becomes president. I certainly hope so, but I have trouble believing that the right-wingers will give up their power. They've already shown their lack of morals, including honesty. They've shown what they will do at the precincts to ensure that the right people win. I wouldn't be surprised if some Democratic candidates had, er, accidents that put them out of running.
In the end, the right believes that anything goes and is justified to win. Let us hope that they do not succeed this time.
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I'm no expert on this stuff but
Sid does speak from previously thought out points and articles that evidently some of us feel we can discount due to mathirphukin ignorance of our own matherphukin ignorance. Though we may never recognize this here fact that flies in our face....do we, huh? Prattle on. And continue in fooling yourself and others and elect another fool, you damned fools. Yes, I am referring to you. We are doomed. Just go ahead and burn the gaddamned constitution and put a king in power. We, the people, don't deserve any better, if we vote republican.
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Goodbye, Mr. Blumenthal
Thank you for one last bit of insight, Mr. Blumenthal. I hope your input will be taken seriously within the Clinton campaign.
Please remember to push the two most important points to Mrs. Clinton.
One, push your own policies, not theirs. A good Republican campaign sticker right now would be "GOP in '08 - why vote for a wannabe Republican when you can vote for a REAL one?", because the Democrats have followed every initiative the Republicans have put out. Have your candidate show some leadership. Have her DEMAND the Democratic rank and file in Congress support the Democrat position.
Two, Don't be afraid to call the Republican positions and actions BAD! Remember to tell your candidate that a) the right wing is going to savage you anyway, and b) all they can really do to you is call you names. Your names for them are better - and YOU can back yours up with facts!
Good luck.
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Only Congress can restore the Constitutional balance
Don't get me wrong. It's certainly a nice thought that Mr. Blumenthal has that the next, hopefully Democratic, President, should graciously deign to hand power back to the Congress where the Constitution says it belongs. But it seems to me that the very idea that we have to wait on a "good emperor" to selflessly surrender power back in order to restore the republic, is about as far down the imperial presidency track as anything John Yoo ever wrote.
That even the opponents of the imperial Presidency can't seem to think in any other terms than that for anything politically significant to happen in this country, including the retrocession of Presidential powers, it has to be an act of the President, is proof that, in facing the imperial Presidency, we are dealing with an all-pervasive climate of opinion, and not just the abuses of one administration, or even one party. One thing, perhaps the only thing, that even the imperial President could never do, would be to effectively and durably hand back the imperial powers, because these powers didn't accrue to the President through any act of any previous President, or any formal change in our written Constitution, but rather by a change in the climate of opinion and the unwritten constitution. That climate of opinion, the conventional wisdom that could be distilled as the idea that only the President, only one Leader, could possibly make decisions and run things in our government, can and will only be refuted by the practical example of Congress actually taking over control of something (Oh, I don't know -- the war, maybe!), and running it better than the President.
No, I'm not holding my breath on that actually happening. But at least Congress simply fighting to assert its rightful authority and power, however unlikely it is to actually happen, actually would, unlike some meaningless gesture from the next god-emperor President, restore the Constitutional balance.