About that Rebellion.... (NY Times)

[kentuck]

It's good to see the Grey Lady return to its job - speaking truth to power. It appears they did not like being played for fools by this Administration over holding onto the NSA story thru the last election. They were fooled once but don't appear to be ready to be fooled again. I hope their return is for real.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/11/opinion/11sat1.html

<snip>

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.

....more

[Skinner]

1. Thanks for posting this.

This nails it.

[kentuck]

2. I like it when the NY Times is on the same page as we are...

:)

[Swamp Rat]

3. Great article!

[annabanana]

4. We've always known they could do it..

if they wanted to. Alas, as heartened as I am to see this, I shall have to wait until I have eaten the pudding.

[rodeodance]

5. best line: "With rebels like these, who needs loyalists?"

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?

[rodeodance]

6. Why do you call it the 'Grey Lady"???

[annabanana]

8. She has been the "Grey Lady" for a long time...

Not flashy or tabloidy.. but stolid and respectable. The kind of paper one could be "seen with" in public.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Can the Congress be held accountable for being an accomplice

to a crime? It's so obvious that the Republicans are the party of corruption, and now they're trying to legalize the President's corruption. At some point, when America finds its center again, can what the Republicans in Congress are doing not only be overturned, but tried?

I think it's important that we do because Cheney, being behind Iraq and the UAE Port deal and probably the wire-tapping, will continue his criminal machinations until he's stopped.

[leveymg]

9. Someone said that revolutionaries who survive become statesmen and

sedition becomes law, if you wait long enough.

Are we the New American Establishment?

Perish the thought.