Promises of Bipartisanship...
...But not quite yet.
The results are in, and the Democratic sweep of Congress official. What's a poor president to do? Why, promise to work with the party he characterized as traitors and terrorist-enablers just a week ago. The trick part is that the promise doesn't take effect until January. In the remaining two months, the President intends to use the current lame-duck Congress as a rubber stamp for every bad idea not yet enacted into law. From an editorial in today's NY Times:
Without missing a beat, Mr. Bush made it clear that, for now, his idea of how to “put the elections behind us” is to use the Republicans’ last two months in control of Congress to try to push through one of the worst ideas his administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have come up with: a bill that would legalize his illegal wiretapping program and gut the law that limits a president’s ability to abuse his power in this way.
For example, he wants the Senate to ratify his recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. That vote, which is likely to be strongly debated, can easily wait for the new Congress, and should. Mr. Bush also pressed for quick passage of “the bipartisan energy legislation,” which had Congressional officials scratching their heads in puzzlement about which bill he might mean. And he wants immediate approval of his administration’s deal to sell civilian nuclear technology to India despite that nation’s refusal to sign or abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
That was a bad idea from the start. But the wiretapping bill is simply outrageous, and it has no business being discussed in this lame duck session.
...The White House refuses to explain itself because this has never been about catching terrorists. It is about overturning the crucial limits placed on executive authority after Watergate and Vietnam. Mr. Cheney and a few other hard-liners have been trying to turn back the clock and have succeeded in some truly scary ways, including the military commissions act they pushed through Congress before the elections. It is vital that they not be allowed to do any more harm. [Emphasis added]
The Democrats in the current Congress no longer have any excuse to play nice. They have nothing to lose. They need to make clear to their GOP colleagues in both houses that the days of the rubber stamp are over and if the GOP wants any role in the next Congress, they'd better start cooperating now, when it counts.
Spinelessness on both sides of the aisle cost as habeas corpus. We don't need to lose the Fourth Amendment as well. If the Democrats need literature to read during a filibuster, I'm sure the voters who gave them a chance to straighten out the messes Mr. Bush and his minions have made of this country will be happy to provide them with pocket Constitutions, copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers, and anything else deemed appropriate.
The results are in, and the Democratic sweep of Congress official. What's a poor president to do? Why, promise to work with the party he characterized as traitors and terrorist-enablers just a week ago. The trick part is that the promise doesn't take effect until January. In the remaining two months, the President intends to use the current lame-duck Congress as a rubber stamp for every bad idea not yet enacted into law. From an editorial in today's NY Times:
Without missing a beat, Mr. Bush made it clear that, for now, his idea of how to “put the elections behind us” is to use the Republicans’ last two months in control of Congress to try to push through one of the worst ideas his administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have come up with: a bill that would legalize his illegal wiretapping program and gut the law that limits a president’s ability to abuse his power in this way.
For example, he wants the Senate to ratify his recess appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. That vote, which is likely to be strongly debated, can easily wait for the new Congress, and should. Mr. Bush also pressed for quick passage of “the bipartisan energy legislation,” which had Congressional officials scratching their heads in puzzlement about which bill he might mean. And he wants immediate approval of his administration’s deal to sell civilian nuclear technology to India despite that nation’s refusal to sign or abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
That was a bad idea from the start. But the wiretapping bill is simply outrageous, and it has no business being discussed in this lame duck session.
...The White House refuses to explain itself because this has never been about catching terrorists. It is about overturning the crucial limits placed on executive authority after Watergate and Vietnam. Mr. Cheney and a few other hard-liners have been trying to turn back the clock and have succeeded in some truly scary ways, including the military commissions act they pushed through Congress before the elections. It is vital that they not be allowed to do any more harm. [Emphasis added]
The Democrats in the current Congress no longer have any excuse to play nice. They have nothing to lose. They need to make clear to their GOP colleagues in both houses that the days of the rubber stamp are over and if the GOP wants any role in the next Congress, they'd better start cooperating now, when it counts.
Spinelessness on both sides of the aisle cost as habeas corpus. We don't need to lose the Fourth Amendment as well. If the Democrats need literature to read during a filibuster, I'm sure the voters who gave them a chance to straighten out the messes Mr. Bush and his minions have made of this country will be happy to provide them with pocket Constitutions, copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers, and anything else deemed appropriate.
Labels: Bolton, Fourth Amendment, Lame Duck
posted by Diane at 3:19 AM
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