President Bush and his merry band of lawbreakers think so. And the Congressional Cowardly Dems still aren’t doing anything besides issuing statements that do little more than make it sound like they’re upset.
President Bush today exerted executive privilege to block the House Oversight Committee’s subpoenas for EPA documents on global warming, heading off a scheduled contempt vote for EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and White House Office of Management and Budget regulatory administrator Susan Dudley. Committee chairman Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) blistering response to the news:
And then Waxman blathers on about how things haven’t been this bad since Nixon and no instance of valid executive privilege has been brought to his attention.
Let me be unambiguous about my views regarding this development.
I’ll start by noting that I appreciate Rep. Waxman’s overall work and approach to legislating. But these comments to the media and letters that he and other Democrats have written in response to Bush’s tramping of Congressional powers are empty shells of what they could and should be. The time for stern words chastising these clowns is over. Either back up the words with meaningful action or stop issuing them.
Bush has no standing to exert executive privilege with regard to EPA global warming documents. What part of those documents could possibly contain information relevant to our national security? If there is something there, Congress needs to dig it out and do something about it. That’s called doing their jobs.
The climate system is being forced and Democrats in Congress are enjoying playing political theatre with a lawless executive branch too much to actually do something about it. The climate system will not wait, Rep. Waxman. Our window for decisive action to mitigate further effects is rapidly closing, if not already closed. How bad the effects get depend largely on when we act.
Now, with respect to the beginning of his stern response, I have the following to offer. Rep. Waxman is absolutely correct in assessing things haven’t been like this since Nixon. Do any Democrats seriously wonder why? Perhaps all of the lawbreaking clowns that were in power during the Nixon administration were once again put in power once Bush was selected by the Supreme Court to rule over us. Were those clowns punished for their activities back then? Not enough of them in any meaningful way. Do any Democrats seriously wonder why they’re not only doing the same things all over again, in many cases they’re purposefully pushing the envelope, daring someone to do something about it. How many laws can they break? How many powers can they remove from Congress without Congress stopping them? How many years can they set back this country? 50? 100? 800 was deemed too much, even for the right-wing Supreme Court of 2008.
Either Congress starts arresting those who are in contempt of its duly issued subpoenas and investigate the articles of impeachment brought against Dick Cheney and George Bush or they go home until Jan. 20, 2009, let the executive branch do whatever they want and hope the next authoritarian executive that comes to power respects the legislative branch’s powers.
Their inactions during this Congress has only convinced unitary executive advocates that they haven’t gone far enough yet.
