I'm glad you posted that exchange, Mr. Grieve; it made me want to tear off my earphones! Senator Schumer asked...

Yes, but you have to -- you can't just answer the ones you want to answer and not answer the ones you don't want to answer. What is the rationale -- the legal rationale -- of answering all the others and not this one?

And yet, he does, and he can. They're all playing this rope-a-dope with Congress on these issues, sticking hard to their lack of principle. And weirdly, I find a kind of similarity of that unprincipled move with a piece in Slate by Doug Kendall and Jim Ryan about Clarence Thomas's highly selective originalism in his rulings...

His recent opinions instead suggest that Thomas will use originalism where it provides support for a politically conservative result, even if that support is weak, as it is in the student-speech case. But where history provides no support, he's likely to ignore it altogether.

http://www.slate.com/id/2171508/nav/tap3/

And I see this as another ideologically-driven corollary to the White House's stonewalling on executive privilege, and, of course, on counting on the Supremes' to selectively uphold it, if push comes to shove, for ideological reasons, though dressed up in the legal equivalent of "truthiness" -- what would that be?

The "now you see it/now you don't" roving executive privilege invocation coyly asserted by this maladministration is the ultimate defense, and I fear that tainted Supremes like Thomas (and Roberts, Scalia, and Alito) will be just fine with it. But the unconstitutional principle these hacks are sticking to is that the Chief Executive can do whatever (s)he wants, any time, and Congress can't do anything about it. That's why the fight over this is worth having for both sides -- but only one side has the Constitution in its corner on this, and it's not the Unitary Executive.

The proper thing to do, given the patterns of mis-information and lying, is to sit each of them down before the committee and as soon as one tries one of these "corn flakes" claims, you have the Sgt. At Arms haul them away for contempt and let them stew while trying to decide if they'll answer. Hell, whenever one contradicts the other, hold both in contempt and start perjury proceedings against both.

Congress should quit playing games, and find them ALL in inherent contempt, and get the sargeant-at-arms to arrest them all and throw them in the slam, starting with Rove.

Congress *can* do this, legally, if I've read the background correctly. Congress just doesn't have the stomach for it.

But that would stop all this shuck-and-jive. Rove in a cell for awhile, along with Miers and Jennings and the rest.

Bush and Cheney will just keep toying away with them as long as congress lets them. The idea is to send the message to the idiot-30-percenters "see, we're complying, we have nothing to hide, and if the President says executive priviledge covers stuff, well, you can trust us.."

Any other citizen who tried equivalent tricks with law-enforcement, or local prosecutors would have their heads handed to them forthwith.

the Dems should quit fucking around and just do it. Nuke 'em right now...metaphorically speaking, of course. The US Attorney firings are the closest congress will probably come to obvious impeachable offenses, since all the lies about the Iraq war are untouchable, apparently.

Try to reason with him.

Why don't you guys just lay on your back and expose your bellies? Maybe wag your tails a little?

It'd be less demeaning.

Come on Chuck, stop screwing around.... you have the power to stop these people from thumbing their nose at congress... it's called Inherent Contempt... and it cannot be 'blocked' by the minority criminal party.

If they are going to lie, forget endlessly, not show up or hide behind George W. Bush's skirt, they can be imprisoned...immediately. So.. let's get it on! Stop the crimes upon crimes!

(from the Congressional Oversight Manual.. updated May 1, 2007)

Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House

or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be

imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either

punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of

time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the

House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to

comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court

as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate.20

Between 1795 and 1934 the House and Senate utilized the inherent contempt power

over 85 times, in most instances to obtain (successfully) testimony and/or documents.

The inherent contempt power has not been exercised by either House in over 70

years. This appears to be because it has been considered too cumbersome and time-

consuming to hold contempt trials at the bar of the offended chamber. Moreover,

some have argued that the procedure is ineffective because punishment can not

extend beyond Congress’s adjournment date.

So why ask it again? The admin is playing the dems like crazy and they deserve it.

They can't make their case unless someone just falls down admitting everything the dems beleive to be true.

It won't happen and in the meantime they are wasting time.

For crying out loud Democrats, enough already with that exercise in futility. Each time one of those gangsters even utters their now famous mantras:I don't remember, I just can't answer that, I have no recollection,et el, bring in the SAA and have him put cuffs on them and march them to jail. We are all sick of the daily spectacle of those lying bastards smirking in the face of the various committees, and the smirk always implies the same thing:I know that you know that I'm lying through my teeth and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.