On a bulletin board I frequent, there was some discussion about checks and balances between the executive and legislative branch. One commenter noted that, in the end, Nixon handed over the tapes when he was ordered to and his people obeyed Congressional subpoenas. The current Bush administration is or was made up of a number of people who lost the Nixon wars — see, e.g. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. You can bet they have spent a lot of time thinking about why they lost back in the 70s. Nowadays, pointed out the commenter, the Bush administration routinely withholds documents and has been directing some of its people not to obey subpoenas.
It occurred to me how far removed our current batch of legislators are from the Founders. The Founders, who made up a good part of our first several legislatures, were not, themselves, so far removed from Cromwell and the Parliamentary forces that, quite literally, decapitated the executive branch of their day. The legislators today don’t seem to be nearly as insistent about their legislative prerogatives.
Now, I’m not advocating any public beheadings just yet. But, nice civics lessons about checks & balances notwithstanding, the fact remains that every power written into the Constitution requires a person or group of people to act to make it effective. And, no, I don’t think sternly worded letters count.
I still can’t understand why our legislators have sat on their hands. The Democrats were given power – in both houses! – and the first thing they say is “Impeachment is off the table”. Little wonder people are frustrated with them.
To draw a topical analogy, this is akin to the Colts sending Gary Coleman out to guard Randy Moss.
The point is, that if you don’t have the ability to invoke cloture on bills.. and you can’t override vetoes, you probably don’t want to spend the next two years (from Nov 2006) beating up on the President and making him and Cheney into martyrs at the same time we have a war on.
Yeah, they shoulda…but political reality is just as important.
IMO the political reality in 2006 was they were put in office to change the course of the war … and to deal with an executive branch not just out of control as far as disobeying the law, but who had lied us into a war.
They chose to do nothing. While that’s not the same as what the neocons have done, standing by earns you some share of the blame also.
The Democrats have been too spineless, by and large. But, the Republicans have helped them out with that by obstructing and whatnot.