As I repeatedly have said the Charlatan has nothing to loose by attempting to expand the powers of the Executive as the expense of Congress until he goes back to Crawford to cut brush. An imperial presidency operating on a permanent war footing where checks and balances can be ignored or overridden has become a touchstone of the neoconservative movement. Theodore Roosevelt, a hero of the movement said, "No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war." (TR happens to be one of John McCain's heroes too). The Charlatan's latest gambit is so outrageous that he may finally have exasperated both sides on the Hill. He signed a permanent security agreement with Iraq that commits the United States to defend Iraq from external and internal threats. That my friends, is a major treaty obligation which according to the Constitution requires ratification by the Senate (Article II). But the Constitution has not stopped him before. Regime officials are attempting to diminish the treaty as simply a "status of forces" executive agreement similar to those we have with countries where there is a permanent presence of US military forces. Even Republicans are not buying that one. But as one Democratic congressman noted nothing is routine with Iraq and especially when the agreement commits US forces to fight there indefinitely. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) said the Charlatan's latest attempt to circumvent Congress in the pursuit of global hegemony contravenes 200 hundred years of settled practice in American government. He has introduced legislation requiring that the agreement signed with Nouri al-Maliki on November 26th last be submitted to the Senate for ratification. But once again such puny efforts by the Senate to exercise it's constitutional powers does not stop a bully. Congress passed a provision in a Pentagon budget bill barring funding for permanent bases in Iraq. The Charlatan promptly issued his own fiat of a signing statement saying he would ignore Congress' directive on how the funds would be spent. He has issued 151 such statements challenging the validity of 1149 laws. If anybody deserves impeachment, as the village in Vermont rightly concluded, it is the former Governor of Texas.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Bully!
As I repeatedly have said the Charlatan has nothing to loose by attempting to expand the powers of the Executive as the expense of Congress until he goes back to Crawford to cut brush. An imperial presidency operating on a permanent war footing where checks and balances can be ignored or overridden has become a touchstone of the neoconservative movement. Theodore Roosevelt, a hero of the movement said, "No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumphs of war." (TR happens to be one of John McCain's heroes too). The Charlatan's latest gambit is so outrageous that he may finally have exasperated both sides on the Hill. He signed a permanent security agreement with Iraq that commits the United States to defend Iraq from external and internal threats. That my friends, is a major treaty obligation which according to the Constitution requires ratification by the Senate (Article II). But the Constitution has not stopped him before. Regime officials are attempting to diminish the treaty as simply a "status of forces" executive agreement similar to those we have with countries where there is a permanent presence of US military forces. Even Republicans are not buying that one. But as one Democratic congressman noted nothing is routine with Iraq and especially when the agreement commits US forces to fight there indefinitely. Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE) said the Charlatan's latest attempt to circumvent Congress in the pursuit of global hegemony contravenes 200 hundred years of settled practice in American government. He has introduced legislation requiring that the agreement signed with Nouri al-Maliki on November 26th last be submitted to the Senate for ratification. But once again such puny efforts by the Senate to exercise it's constitutional powers does not stop a bully. Congress passed a provision in a Pentagon budget bill barring funding for permanent bases in Iraq. The Charlatan promptly issued his own fiat of a signing statement saying he would ignore Congress' directive on how the funds would be spent. He has issued 151 such statements challenging the validity of 1149 laws. If anybody deserves impeachment, as the village in Vermont rightly concluded, it is the former Governor of Texas.