NYT:About That Rebellion ...

[cal04]

We keep hearing that the Republicans in Congress are in revolt against the president.
Some rebellion.

Yes, the Republicans defied President Bush on the United Arab Emirates ports deal. But it wasn't over a major principle, like the collapse of Congressional supervision of the executive branch or the incredibly lax security in the nation's ports, or even the security issues posed by this particular deal. The Republicans dumped the ports deal into the harbor because of xenophobia and electoral tactics. Republican pollsters have been saying the president could be a liability in the fall elections, so lawmakers posed as rebels for voters who, they think, want rebels. They know those voters are unhappy about globalization, and specifically hostile toward Arabs.

The idea that a happy few are charging the White House ramparts is ridiculous. Republican lawmakers don't just turn a blind eye when they learn that the president is making profoundly bad choices, like cutting constitutional corners, abrogating treaties and even breaking the law. They actually legalize the president's misdeeds. Take domestic spying, held up as another area of Republican revolt. The program violates the law. Congress knows it. The public knows it. Even President Bush knows it. (He just says the law doesn't apply to him.) In response, the Capitol Hill rebels are boldly refusing to investigate the program — or any other warrantless spying that is going on. They are trying to rewrite the law to legalize warrantless spying. And meanwhile, they've created new subcommittees to help the president go on defying the law.

Over the last couple of years, Republican lawmakers have been given proof that American soldiers and intelligence agents abused, tortured and even killed prisoners, or sent them to other countries to be tortured. Without hesitation, the Republicans did nothing — no serious investigation, no accountability. Congressional and White House negotiators then watered down the new anti-torture law, which Mr. Bush said did not really apply to him anyway. And they passed another law actually encouraging the abuse of prisoners by allowing the use of coerced evidence at hearings on the prisoners' status. After 9/11, Mr. Bush created a network of prisons outside the American legal system so he could hold people indefinitely without any hearings.

When the Supreme Court said twice that he was reaching beyond his powers, the Republicans in Congress were determined not to let this assault on the rule of law continue. So they rose as one, and legalized the president's actions. In case there was any confusion about its resolve, Congress told the courts that they could no longer rule on these matters. Mr. Bush got the message, loud and clear. He sent his lawyers right out to inform the judges, including the Supreme Court, that they had to drop all the cases that were already before them. And all this does not even include the act of open rebellion by which the Senate is helping the White House cover up the hyping of intelligence on Iraq.
With rebels like these, who needs loyalists?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/opinion/11sat1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[SongOfTheRayne]

1. Good point.

Needed to be said.

I will never understand humanity. How could people bring themselves to do such things? To ignore such atrocities...

[AX10]

2. Dems better retake the congress this fall.

[depakid]

3. They should have thought of that

back in January and February- when they let their DINO's legitimize and enable the far right repeatedly over the course of 4 weeks, when they had them on the ropes. It's a little late to think they're going to be able to nationalize a campaign now. The tone's already been set for the year- and it won't be pretty come November.

[4dsc]

4. That would explain the "new" Contract with America

Check out how the neocons are trying to run away form AWOLbush under the disguise of being conservatives.. I had a damn good laugh about this.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/TimChapman/2006/03/09/189158.html

Limited-government conservatism is back. You know what I mean: the kind of conservatism espoused by Barry Goldwater and then championed by President Ronald Reagan – the kind of conservatism that the revolutionary congressional class of 1994 brought to the American people in the form of the Contract with America.

It is this brand of conservatism – a brand dedicated to limiting the size and scope of the federal government, a brand that recognizes that big government is not good government just because it is our government – that has sadly been missing of late. But no longer.

On Wednesday, members of the conservative Republican Study Committee in the House of Representatives took it upon themselves to single-handedly resurrect the philosophical heart and soul of the Republican Party.

[necso]

5. There are two other good editorials

in the Times today, likewise unattributed.

There's also an interesting attributed piece.

Personally, however, I see considerable danger in the too-close association of net-players with the establishment: danger that (partially) takes the form of being coopted by the establishment -- and becoming just another agent of it.

And sure, new voices and faces are needed, but these must be more than just new voices and faces -- they must be winners. And they must be held to an iron standard of success; a standard that we have failed to hold the establishment to, instead becoming lost in a sea of of ego-driven and fan-club politics that too often emphasizes form over function, pleasing speech over effective act.

[AX10]

6. KICK