Separate Powers, Witch-hunts and Good Ideas

The Democrats in Congress are pounding President Bush over the head and he’s punching right back. Speaker Pelosi says – but not in so many words – that Bush is an arrogant jerk. He says she’s for cutting off bullets to the troops in Iraq. Senator Harry Reid adds Bush thinks he’s king – when he’s only President.


With fire in her eyes – and the next election in her sights – Speaker Pelosi has set up the House Oversight Committee. By ‘oversight’ she means the Democrats can poke, probe, and subpoena anything in the Bush Administration. They can turn over rocks, look for secrets, hold hearings and call witnesses.


Of course the Republicans could have done all those things, too, when they had power. But what to a Republican looks like an honest mistake by the President looks to a Democrat like political skullduggery.


For instance, Democrats are holding hearings into the combat death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture and rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq. (News and Observer; 4-11-07.) They say Tillman was killed by friendly fire, not enemy fire, and Lynch’s capture and rescue weren’t quite as heroic as the Bush administration made it sound.


Republicans say the inaccurate report on Tillman’s death was an honest error. Democrats say the Department of Defense misrepresented the facts to put a grander face on the war.


This is not a pleasant experience for the President. Democratic investors are looking into billions he paid private contractors – like the Vice-President’s old firm Halliburton – to rebuild Iraq and hinting wagonloads of cash have vanished in a puff of smoke. If the President had fired eight U.S. Attorneys two years ago, Congress wouldn’t have batted an eye. Today the Attorney General is being hauled before the Oversight Committee and he’ll be lucky to survive.


It’s a god-awful mess, a bar-room brawl and the theatre of the absurd. The investigations are little more than witch-hunts. But in the larger sense this is how our government is supposed to work. It’s the ‘Separation of Powers’ doctrine grinding away at politicians with a vengeance. Bush controls the White House, Pelosi controls the Congress, each scrutinizes every breath the other takes and it must be admitted the public is getting facts it didn’t get for the previous six years – which isn’t such a bad development at all.


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Separate Powers, Witch-hunts and Good Ideas

The Democrats in Congress are pounding President Bush over the head and he’s punching right back. Speaker Pelosi says – but not in so many words – that Bush is an arrogant jerk. He says she’s for cutting off bullets to the troops in Iraq. Senator Harry Reid adds Bush thinks he’s king – when he’s only President.


With fire in her eyes – and the next election in her sights – Speaker Pelosi has set up the House Oversight Committee. By ‘oversight’ she means the Democrats can poke, probe, and subpoena anything in the Bush Administration. They can turn over rocks, look for secrets, hold hearings and call witnesses.


Of course the Republicans could have done all those things, too, when they had power. But what to a Republican looks like an honest mistake by the President looks to a Democrat like political skullduggery.


For instance, Democrats are holding hearings into the combat death of former NFL player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and the capture and rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch in Iraq. (News and Observer; 4-11-07.) They say Tillman was killed by friendly fire, not enemy fire, and Lynch’s capture and rescue weren’t quite as heroic as the Bush administration made it sound.


Republicans say the inaccurate report on Tillman’s death was an honest error. Democrats say the Department of Defense misrepresented the facts to put a grander face on the war.


This is not a pleasant experience for the President. Democratic investors are looking into billions he paid private contractors – like the Vice-President’s old firm Halliburton – to rebuild Iraq and hinting wagonloads of cash have vanished in a puff of smoke. If the President had fired eight U.S. Attorneys two years ago, Congress wouldn’t have batted an eye. Today the Attorney General is being hauled before the Oversight Committee and he’ll be lucky to survive.


It’s a god-awful mess, a bar-room brawl and the theatre of the absurd. The investigations are little more than witch-hunts. But in the larger sense this is how our government is supposed to work. It’s the ‘Separation of Powers’ doctrine grinding away at politicians with a vengeance. Bush controls the White House, Pelosi controls the Congress, each scrutinizes every breath the other takes and it must be admitted the public is getting facts it didn’t get for the previous six years – which isn’t such a bad development at all.


Click Here to discuss and comment on this and other articles in our Forum.

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Carter Wrenn

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