Of course not. If he's asked to do anything by the Legislative Branch, he'll absolutely claim Executive Privilege or perhaps even that the Legislative Branch has no authority because he is not "of the branches." Regardless, this is where we are now... a complete crazy, nonsensical man running the country (or at least the parts he's interested in... military, foreign policy, intelligence, human rights) while claiming he is accountable to none, including the Constitution. And the sad fact is he is not being held accountable to Congress, no matter how right they are or how many letters they write or hearings they have unless they are willing to impeach him now. He's certainly not accountable to the press... nobody's really writing about this even though as a Constitutional crisis it makes the Clinton impeachment look like a third grade play. even if they were writing articles, he's shown he doesn't care what the country thinks and he is oblivious to criticism, even the positive kind. Looking at the whole of the Bush Administration, I have to think that we have to deal with this now, 2008 consequences be damned and people's idea of civility be damned. If we let this skate until 2008, then all it shows is that if you are brazen enough you can literally get away with anything. At least impeach Cheney now. If they did, the ratings of Congress wouldn't be so bad and it would be hilarious listening to Repubs argue that they Dems ought to work on stopping the war because they got elected for that and not getting rid of Cheney. Fact is, cutting off funding isn't the only way to stop the war. Cutting off Cheney would be a big step to stopping it as well.
^ Congress could impeach Cheney but I don't think that would improve the ratings of Congress. All it would do would be to tie up the government even more. I think dissatisfaction with Congress isn't so much that they aren't being harder on the Executive branch as they aren't getting anything accomplished. That though is going to be the case with divided government and an impeachment of Cheney led by the Democrats is likely to fall as flat as the impeachment of Clinton, and we saw what that did to Congress' ratings then.
yeah, i dont think is has anything to do with them being harder on the exec branch. Like you say, they havent got much acomplished at all...besides banning smoking in a place where no one was smoking. there was all this great talk (pep rally) about how things were going to change and things were going to get done, well like a good politician, that was just lip service.
via TMPmuckraker -- Never in the history of the United States has anyone contended that the Vice President is outside the executive branch. Never. Not even during last call at a bar outside of the country's worst law school. But then, in 2004, Dick Cheney needed to circumvent the National Archives' oversight of how his office handles classified information, and suddenly the vice president hovers in the constitutional equivalent of Purgatory, belonging to neither the executive nor the legislative branches. Poor Cactus Jack Garner: he thought the veep's job wasn't worth "a warm bucket of spit," when in fact the office bestrides constitutional governance like an all-powerful colossus. It's hard to dignify Cheney's argument. But at her press conference today, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino managed to further undignify it, calling the question of the placement of the Vice President within the government " an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate." To Perino, who generously conceded she is "not a lawyer," the role of the VP is "unique": Let the debate begin. --
That's crap. I'll assign as much blame to the Dem Congress as anyone for not being more aggressive on the war (i.e. cutting off funding, which is the only path available to them unless they can flip a substantial number of R's), but the reason they haven't been able to accomplish anything is that after 6 years without a veto Bush has threatened a veto on virtually everything the Dem Congress has tried to do. They're in the majority, but it's not a veto-proof majority. If you want something to get done, tell Bush to stop defying 60+ vote majorities in the Senate on issues that are demonstrably in line with the will of the majority of the American people.
What Bush and the R Congress accomplished was NOT nothing. It was worse than nothing. That was updawg's point.
so essentially Bush and Cheney have officially said FU to the constitution and the people of the U.S.
veto a stupid timeline for a war effort...completely ridiculous from a war strategy aspect. then veto a govt funding for embryonic stem cells bill, which has been regected before. Why present something you know will get vetoed in the first place..to make a point? talk about a waste of time. am i missing any other vetos? look, im not taking sides. everyone is ineffective, i wont discriminate in commenting on the complete lack of common sense and incompetencies that are in washington. But obviously bush is the easy target, its just he's clearly not the only one.
The American people want this war to end. That is the number one issue for them. Bush is the one keeping that from happening. You keep saying he's not the only one at fault and in a way I agree with you. The Republicans in Congress and Joe Lieberman are also at fault for enabling him. Democrats are complicit for not doing every single thing in their power to serve the will of the people that elected them by cutting off funding. And every single person that voted for Bush or for any of the R's or Lieberman is complicit too. But there is no way you can't put the primary fault for the continuation of this failed, unpopular war on the person who made the decision to go to war, who continues to veto any legislation that would lead to its end and who also, incidentally, happens to be the commander in chief, the president of the country and the most powerful single person on the planet earth.
But the one you prefer to single out? i dont know if im defending. im just sick of the singling out when there is incompetency everywhere. And people place this false hope in that once he is gone all will be ok. it wont be.
For good or bad though Congress almost always gets the blame for a do-nothing government. In the showdown over the government shutdown during Clinton's term it was Congress who got the brunt of the blame even though Clinton could've prevented it by signing the budget bills from Congress.
You're right; it won't. The damage caused by this administration has been unprecedented and it will take a great lot of time, effort, money and lives to clean up and correct. But Bush leaving office will at least stop the bleeding.
My point is that they are not "doing nothing." They are passing legislation that is in direct line with the will of the people. And Bush is stubbornly vetoing it. I agree they could do more. They could cut off funding. But they have done every single thing short of that and they have come very close at different times to obtaining a veto-proof majority. That's not nothing.
