Bush and the Whimpering Renegades

L'Etat c'est George. Dick Cheney's interview on Fox today was the logical outcome of everything he's done as Vice-President since the Bush inaugural. During the interview, Cheney argued that Congressional resolutions against the surge would have no impact on President Bush's conduct of the war. That may be the whole point of the surge. Dahlia Lithwick argues in Slate that the Bush administration has kept Guantanamo open, defied the FISA procedures for getting wiretaps, and tortured prisoners mostly so that they could assert a claim that the President did not have to obey either American or international law. L'Etat c'est George. Perhaps the Bush administration is now trying to demonstrate that a president can conduct a war in defiance of Congress, defiance of the courts, and defiance of public opinion.

The Point of Crisis. Glen Greenwald warns in a compelling blog post that the now-weakened Bush administration may lash out on a major scale as a way to prove their strength to themselves. My own thinking runs in the opposite direction. With the Bush administration committing itself to increasing the number of troops in Iraq, the political initiative is now slipping from Bush's hands to those of the Democratic majority in Congress. Next week, the Democrats are going to pass resolutions rejecting any surge in American troop levels and they're going to get up to 12 Republican votes in support of those resolutions. The next decision that the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate has to make is whether they're going to force a showdown over funding for the Iraq War. The leadership would rather be cautious, but it looks like public opinion might force their hand. The Democratic Congress is now the only credible part of government on the federal level and the the Democrats will be forced to push for a cut-off if public opinion hardens in that direction.

The Clock is Ticking Down: At this point, it's difficult to predict how the Bush administration would respond if Congress did cut off funds for the war. Conceivably, Bush and Cheney could defy the cut-off by unilaterally transferring funds for other accounts. They could also use the occasion to wash their hands of the failed war in Iraq and hope that future events like another 9-11 ultimately justify their position. Perhaps the chances for the former are better. The clock is ticking down on the Bush administration--there are 2 years and 6 days to go. Right now, I think the renegade administration of George Bush and Dick Cheney will go out with a whimper rather than a bang.