Restoring Checks And Balances

The Nation: The Republic Needs A Showdown Between Bush And Congress

(The Nation)  This column was written by John Nichols.

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The founder of the Republic, conscious of the excesses that resulted when King George III and his Parliament cooperated, endeavored to put the legislative and executive branches of the United States at odds with one another.

Jefferson believed: "The concentrating [of the legislative, executive and judicial powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government."

To combat such despotism, the first democrat said, "The powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."

Jefferson's frequent rival, John Adams, agreed with him on this point, arguing that, "[Checks and balances] are our only security."

During the first six years of the Bush-Cheney interregnum, the system of checks and balances established at the opening of the American experiment effectively collapsed. Republicans, who generally controlled the legislative branch of government during the period, were more concerned with party loyalty than their duties to the Republic. Democrats, who briefly controlled the Senate, operated as a compromised opposition party under the cowering "leadership" of House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Since the November, 2006, elections, which marked something of a breaking point in the pattern of executive dominance that had been in operation up to that point, there has been much talk about the restoration of the separation of powers required by the Constitution.

Only now, however, with the declaration by Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that he will take the Bush-Cheney White House to court if the administration continues to refuse to cooperate with subpoenas, does the talk begin to have meaning.

"The president and vice president are not above the law anymore than you and I are," Leahy declared Sunday.

Asked on NBC's "Meet the Press" whether he would seek a congressional vote on contempt citations that would take the subpoena fight to the courts, Leahy said, "If they don't cooperate, yes I'll go that far." Speaking of White House stonewalling in the struggle to get to the bottom of the U.S. Attorneys scandal and related cases of executive excess, the senior senator from Vermont said of Bush and Cheney, "They've chosen confrontation rather than compromise or cooperation. The bottom line is in the U.S. attorney investigation, we have people manipulating law enforcement. Law enforcement can't be partisan."

Leahy's committee has, with support from Democrats and Republicans, issued subpoenas the White House seeking documents relating to the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys who were deemed to be insufficiently partisan in their investigations and prosecutions. The committee has also sent subpoenas to the White House and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney seeking documents detailing the legal debates around the administration's warrantless wiretapping program. And it has issued summons to key players in the administration and the Justice Department.

The administration's reaction has, so far, been one of refusal to cooperate in a serious manner. White House counsel Fred Fielding announced last week that the president was invoking "executive privilege" in refusing to turn over requested documents on the firings. Bush has also claimed the right to prevent former White House counsel Harriet Miers and former White House political director Sara Taylor from testifying under oath about their role in pressuring U.S. Attorneys to politicize prosecutions.

Leahy's statements Sunday indicate a willingness to have lawmakers vote to cite the White House for contempt of Congress. Ironically, the matter would then be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to bring before a grand jury.

If the matter actually gets to court, it would be the first time that such a dispute has been so litigated since the Watergate-era clashes between Nixon White House and Congress. The value of those clashes, above all, was the role they played in restoring a measure of Constitutional order to the Republic.

What is amusing is that some media outlets have in recent days taken to speculating about whether a constitutional crisis might ensue if Leahy takes things to the courts.

In fact, the constitutional crisis has played out over the past six years. What Leahy proposes is to address it.

[hwk_i67]

What will be interesting to see is what happens when Bush/Cheney have to give up their thrones, er, posts. Sorry. The question is, will they? Or will they continue to use "executive privilege" to stay in office "for our own good" and protect us from the evils of terror?

[rharrin1]

Nancy Pelosi is starting to look like part of the problem. She doesn't seem to have the guts to take Bushit on. Even if the Senate would never convict Bushit and Chickenshit, the House could impeach them and compel them to testify under oath and penalty of perjury.

But it takes some courage from the seemingly supine House Democrats. Pelosi is a huge disappointment.

Posted by gkc99 at 07:52 PM : Jul 04, 2007

You are right but I think it"s because she has no ballls.

[tejasdemo]

GO GET 'EM DEMS !!!! The country is behind you. There is no need for compromise anymore with Republicans.

Impeach, Impeach, Impeach !!!!!!!!

[ianlou]

George Bush = 114 pardons 3 commuted sentences.
Bill Clinton = 671 pardons 70 commuted sentences,

I FIND IT IRONICALLY AMUSING THAT LIBERALS GET VERY ANGRY WHEN A CONSERVATIVE ACTS LIKE A LIBERAL.
...
Posted by processor2 at 10:20 AM : Jul 05, 2007

processor2, SHUT UP!

you're wasting electrons.

[hungry1968]

George Bush = 114 pardons 3 commuted sentences.
Bill Clinton = 671 pardons 70 commuted sentences,

I FIND IT IRONICALLY AMUSING THAT LIBERALS GET VERY ANGRY WHEN A CONSERVATIVE ACTS LIKE A LIBERAL.

Posted by processor2 at 10:20 AM : Jul 05, 2007

If the immigration bill would have passed, it would have been:

George Bush = 12,000,114 pardons 3 commuted sentences.
Bill Clinton = 671 pardons 70 commuted sentences,

[processor2]

George Bush = 114 pardons 3 commuted sentences.
Bill Clinton = 671 pardons 70 commuted sentences,

I FIND IT IRONICALLY AMUSING THAT LIBERALS GET VERY ANGRY WHEN A CONSERVATIVE ACTS LIKE A LIBERAL.

...

[bombadil4]

I fear we may be losing our last chance to save the country from the dangerous directions of the Bush/Cheney crowd. The Demorcrats--with some exceptions--seem more intent on not "over-reaching" or ruffling too many feathers so as to make it more likely a Dem will win the White House. Polls continue to show this to be a dubious hope. It may require a majority of people, when actually in the booth, to vote for a woman or a black man. In the recent French elections, polls showed the female candidate fairly comfortably in the lead. Instead she lost fairly comfortably. Sometimes when polled, people will say what's politically correct but then when push comes to shove, old fears and instincts will prevail. Should we continue down the path of using easily hacked paperless voting machines, we have even more to fear. And of course with a Supreme Court increasingly racing to the right, there is little doubt what will happen should the election be thrown their way again.

[grumpas]

The far right wing nuts tell themselves Bush is no different from all other politician's. In their sick minds that justifies his behavior. Every time someone criticizes him (Bush) they always bring up Clinton! That seems to be the one and only excuse they can come up with. They don't seem to want to see there is a world of difference between the two men's crimes. I have come to the conclusion these people are just as immoral as Bush is if they don't see what is wrong with what he is doing. I personally think a lot of these folks completely lost their sense of right and wrong the instant the first plane hit the World Trade Center. I am not certain why? Maybe it was something that was missing in their character's a long time before that event and I just didn't see it! But, the point is they don't see the difference between cheating on your wife with a young intern and dismantling the country bit by bit! They saw what was wrong with Clinton lying to Congress and were insenced. But, they choose not to see that Bush lied to start a war! I have come to the conclusion most of them are not that patriotic of American's! They are more patriotic to the Republican party than they are to the USA! They would follow it into hell and choose to not see the truth.

[glb1969]

I see the light at the end of the tunnell, Bush is impeached and executed on the Washington Mall for all to see for crimes against humanity. Soon, the evil emporer will be dead and freedom will once again be the rule of the land. Soon... But only if we all work together to make sure Bush gets what he has coming.

[wogerwabbit]

We must be vigilant... I fear there is more to all this than meets the eye. The neocon corporate elite were convinced that they had started their thousand year reich and they are not going to give up on their perverted dream that easily. They used the Republican Party, Evangelical Christians and one hell of a marketing campaign to bamboozle this nation into believing that they had the American people's interests at heart. We've seen our inalienable rights molested, the rape of Iraq and the financial pillaging of our treasury by a ruthless gang of profit fanatics bent on spreading the wealth of their new found power to their family and friends, all financed be us, the little people. Dark whisperings of huge detention facilities built by the government only serve to stir the imagination about what these folks might have in mind.

[ubrew12]

l8c6 said: "They'll [neocons] have a big government, one controlled by private interests with a militia protecting their sorry a*s*ses at the entrance to their gated communities at the expense of the masses working for the multinationals and shopping at the company store. "

Too true, I fear. 'Small government' was just pap for the masses, like religion (anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-evolution, anti-Global Warming).

Sad times for America. Take a look at Mike Moore's 'Sicko' for a view of how America could have been...

[gkc99]

Nancy Pelosi is starting to look like part of the problem. She doesn't seem to have the guts to take Bushit on. Even if the Senate would never convict Bushit and Chickenshit, the House could impeach them and compel them to testify under oath and penalty of perjury.

If the Senate were required, like a court, to follow legal precedent, Clinton would have been convicted, as the case Nixon v. US establishes that lying under oath DOES rise to the level of a "high crime and misdemeanor." (No, not that Nixon. He was a Mississippi postmaster.) Bushit could be convicted on the same basis.

But it takes some courage from the seemingly supine House Democrats. Pelosi is a huge disappointment.

[l8c6]

ubrew12, That's there deception, the right wing Trent Lott, Lindsey Graham, Bill Frist (healthcare billionaire) et. al. fundamentalist false prophets.

They'll have a big government, one controlled by private interests with a militia protecting their sorry a*s*ses at the entrance to their gated communities at the expense of the masses working for the multinationals and shopping at the company store.

[trillion1]

How can we hope for a balance of power with the spineless congress we have. All they do is make empty threats when America is starved for action.

[ubrew12]

Jefferson believed: "The concentrating [of the legislative, executive and judicial powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government."

Sad commentary on the 'Party of Small Government' that this is where they've taken us. Who woulda thunk it?

[l8c6]

Too much of america works long hours and has listened to the propaganda of Fox, Rush, Coulter et. al.

Not enough people get it and if it takes long soup lines and a 19th century British common societal experience for it to sink in I'm not sure this country will survive in the modern age. It just may be too late.

The multinational corporatists are he*ll bent on killing the foundation of this country with their perverse misguided ideology.

Our politicians are pimped bought off hoes. We are lacking visionaries like the framers of this nation. We barely have a choice of leadership anymore.

The U.S. system fosters and enables sociopathic attitudes and behaviors from the top down. Low functioning sociopaths are scapegoated to give a false sense we're a nation of laws and tough on crime. It's the right wing method. Hitler was a man of law and punishment for others but himself. It's the way of the right wing dictator. The old world was ruled by right wing autocratic power.

[waynabq]

The Scooter Libby scandal is the FINAL straw. I, along
with 75% of the voting public, am fed up with the Bush
administration%u2019s lies, deceit and corruption.

What kind of a government do we have that exonerates a
convicted criminal who's gone through the entire
judicial process and found guilty by a jury of his
peers only to be let loose on a whim?

Mr. Libby perjured himself and obstructed justice to
protect George Bush, *** Cheney and Karl Rove from
possible indictment and conviction for exposing a CIA
operative's classified undercover identity for
political revenge at the peril of our national
security. This is nothing short of treason.

The Bush administration's deceit about WMDs have led
to an unnecessary war that's killed and maimed over
23,000 of our troops at a cost of nearly half a
trillion dollars. This war has made the terrorist
situation worse then ever. Our approval in the
international community now stands at a paltry 7
percent and for good reason.

A recent study conducted by MIT and John Hopkins
University estimates a staggering 600,000 to 800,000
Iraqi civilians have been maimed or killed as a direct
or indirect consequence of the Bush's invasion.

The human suffering of the Iraqi people cannot be
underestimated. According to the latest figures from
human rights watch groups, nearly 4.2 million Iraqis
have been displaced from their homes by Bush's
invasion.

[oleander8]

To Mr Leahy - stop talking about it (testing the waters) and DO it.

[deborahcox05]

PLEASE TAKE THESE CRIMINALS TO COURT AND GET THEM OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

THIS ADMINISTRATION IS CORRUPT AND KEEPS THROWING THEIR POWER IN THE FACES OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

THIS IS NOT HOW OUR COUNTRY WAS MEANT TO BE!!

SOMEONE - ANYONE - START IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS NOW!

[sjvwsnc]

http://www.wikicongress.org/campaign/


Let congress know how you feel...

We are mad and are not going to take it anymore