Well I've read plenty on this site about the need of our party to take over at least 1 house of Congress in this election cycle and fwiw I also believe that. However I've also read plenty on this site where diarists/commenters believe this will allow the dems to halt the more egregious excesses of this admin, conduct hearings and maybe even initiate proceedings to remove this shrub....
Digby
This issue perfectly defines the real argument between the netroots and the establishment. We want to engage the opposition head on and they simply refuse. It is not about policy, although there is plenty to discuss on that count. It is about enabling criminal, radical, undemocratic politics to go unchecked in the name of some sort of bipartisan comity that only Joe Lieberman and his friends at the Democratic Leadership Council believe still exists. It's about not letting Lucy pull the football away again.
Let's engage the enemy, Digby points out that Clinton's reward for his attempt at bi-partisanhip was impeachment. Fuck these turds, the dem pols need to go after them.
I believed this also, but Glenn Greenwald throws cold water on this belief in a great
post today. It's pretty clear that despite a completely failed presidency shrub
STILL gets whatever he wants with almost no resistance. I'd like to think a democratic congress would at least put a bit of a break on the turds but after reading Mr. Greenwald today I'm not so sure, from Mr. Greenwald:
For all the talk of the weakened and impotent presidency and the split among Republicans, it is still virtually always the case that the President gets what he wants, and does so without much difficulty. The few times he fails to -- Harriet Miers, the Dubai Port deal, anti-torture legislation -- is because Republicans, not Democrats, take a stand against the White House.
But by and large, what happened yesterday with Gen. Hayden's nomination is exactly what would have happened in 2002 and 2003. Democrats are afraid to challenge the President due to their fear -- always due to their fear -- that they will be depicted as mean, obstructionist and weak on national security. And so, even with an unbelievable weakened President, and even with regard to the most consequential issues -- and can one doubt that installing Gen. Hayden as CIA Director is consequential? -- Democrats back away from fights, take no clear position, divide against each other, and stand up for exactly nothing.
You'd a thought that a guy with a 29% approval rating woulda had a harder time installing a CIA director that has refused to say if he'd
even comply with the law. Mr. Greenwald continues:
I've written before that, at least to me, the principal if not exclusive benefit of the Democrats taking over one or both of the Congressional houses in November is that it will impose some checks and limitations on the behavior of the administration and, specifically, will finally result in meaningful investigations into what has happened in our country and to our government over the last five years. But I have serious doubts about whether that would really happen.
After November, 2006, the presidential elections are not far away. The same paralyzing, stagnating, fatally passive Democratic voices who always counsel against standing up to the administration aren't going anywhere. It is not hard to imagine what they will be saying:
President Bush is a lame duck who is out in 2008, and so it doesn't matter what he got away with or what he did. Conducting investigations into these intelligence and "anti-terrorist" scandals will be depicted as obstructionist and weak on national security, and will jeopardize our chances to re-take the White House and will cost us House and Senate seats. It is best to look forward, not to the past, and not be seen as conducting vendettas against the lame duck President. What matters is taking the White House in 2008 and so there is no reason to attack the President on these matters of the past.
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I think Congressional Democrats will be more cautious and passive, not less so, if they take over one of the Congressional houses in 2006. People who operate from a place of fear and excess caution become even more timid and fearful when they have something to lose. The Democratic Congressional Chairs are going to be desperate not to lose that newfound power, and they will be very, very vulnerable to the whiny whispers of the consultant class that they should not spend their time and energy investigating this administration or vigorously opposing them on national security matters.
Honestly I'd really like to see that asshole currently illegally occupying the WH get his ass impeached, rotten fucker, and I'd like to see the dems lead the charge. The congressional dems could take a page from the turd playback when they went after Clinton, and hell his approval rating was double shrub's!
Now please understand I'm not arguing the dems should lose, but I'm just not so sure we're going to get what we thought we'd get should "our" side take over at least one house of congress this cycle.