Another way that the Bush administration is leading the Republican Party to suicide is by failing to cooperate with Congressional investigations. The Bush administration thinks that they can run out the clock on the deluge of Congressional investigations and leave office in January 2009 without having given Congressional Democrats any solid information. They think that Alberto Gonzales can continue to lie, that Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten can continue to snub the House Judiciary Committee, and that they can protect Karl Rove from Henry Waxman's investigation into political campaigning with civil service personnel.
Once again, the Bush administration is playing chicken--the only game they ever want to play. The basic idea is to refuse to cooperate with the Democrats and dare them to try to impeach Gonzales or hold Miers and Bolton in contempt of Congress. And if Congressional Republicans want Gonzales to either resign or cooperate, the White House will tell them where to stick it as well.
They might as well call it a Republican Suicide strategy. That's because the Democrats are going to have an easy time making Gonzales, Miers, and Bolton (especially Gonzales) into a campaign issue. I can just see the Democratic attack ad claiming that the Bush administration is the most incompetent administrtion in American history, showing a clip of Gonzales speaking, and then going on to say that the Democrats will dramatically improve the quality of government personnel.
But it's worse than that for the Republicans. Stonewalling now means that Democratic investigations into the Bush administration will continue after the election of 2008 and that stories of the Bush administration's corruption, malfeasance, and incompetence will be dominating the media right up to the 2010 Congressional elections. There will barely be enough time for stories about President Hillary's salon visits.
One could say that the Bush administration is giving the Democrats a club, but it's more accurate to say that the Bush administration is forcing the Republican Party into a suicide march.
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4 comments:
Heaven forbid there actually be something like Executive privilege being asserted here. In various manners, this same privilege has been asserted by every administration since Kennedy, but let's continue to push this idea that it is unprecedented.
By the time Bush gets done, they're going to call it the "obstruction of justice" privilege. I don't think the Bush administration realizes what a heavy burden their assertion of executive privilege is going to be on Republicans for years to come.
Was it a burden for the Democrats when Clinton used it?
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20020206.html
Yes, as the Supreme Court found, but this is claim is greater. The White House forbade Ms. Meirs to testify, a former Whote House official. The Bush folks have extended executive privilege to the conversation of two flunkies from the Ag Department in the Commissary.
Lastly, the White House refuses, and this is unprecedented, to tell Congress WHAT is protected. Bolten has been judged to be in contempt, because he won't indicate what documents are protected and which emails he won't turn over. Patently ridiculous claim. They are not the King.
We PW guests might want to imagine the same powers under the new administration. Will you like it B Moe when President Clinton (redux) is listening to your phone call?
Ric, I say good riddance to them. This President is engineering a Hoover-esque rebuff of his party. His immigration policy is the gift that keeps on giving. It fractures the Republican colation between the greedy bastards and the rac...err folks concerned about the border. As a bonus, it drives 41 MILLION Hispanic voters to the Democrats.
Here's a screen shot of two polls for you: http://static.crooksandliars.com/2007/07/mtp-todd-florida.jpg
Those two polls from USA Today and NBC show a 50 to 21 split in party identification among FLORIDA Hispanics.
Suicide indeed and I'm loving watching them prepare for it.
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