We're watching a President get manhandled by Congress. Long time since we've seen the like.

[WilliamPitt]

We spent six years with a president who could ram whatever he wanted through congress. He had Hastert and Frist and DeLay, we had a bag of doorknobs and a lot of deep sighs. We spent the next two years watching the GOP minority filibuster everything in Congress except the sink in the men's room. Again, doorknobs and sighs.

It was the utterly imperial nature of the Bush presidency that I loathed and feared the most. He did great damage to the constitution, and I have been deeply afraid he may have irreparably undone the separation of powers doctrine. He ignored subpoenas, spied on everyone, lied us into wars...know what? Fuck it, I'm not writing all that shit again, you know full well what he did.

An imperial presidency is anathema to the rule of constitutional law in America, but that's what we had. The Executive, flush with vastly expanded and not yet legally challenged powers, was handed to Obama, and I've been waiting to see what happens next.

And in a weird way, all this bedlam around the stimulus is a tonic.

Think about it.

The Executive Branch is getting kicked around by the Legislative Branch.

Wha?

A year ago, we'd have been dancing in the streets. Right?

This thing will pass in whatever form, and smart money says we'll be seeing Stimulus II coming to a theater near you at some point. Everybody in the House, the Senate and the White House got all geeked up because the whole government just got turned inside out. They got spooked by the lights, and the Republicans have ALWAYS been better at the to-the-knife media warfare than us. A lot of the stuff getting cut will come back again in different legislation.

The Executive Branch is getting kicked around by the Legislative Branch. It'll pass, but the separation of powers is in effect. That gladdens me. deeply.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.