A Defining Moment for Congress --Froomkin WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/09/14/BL2006091400784.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email

A Defining Moment for Congress

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, September 14, 2006; 1:00 PM



Just how far can President Bush push Congress? We'll know soon enough. The Bush-Cheney assertion of wartime executive power has been so extreme and widespread that even many Republicans are troubled by one manifestation or the other. But the occasional signs of rebellion within the ruling party have time and again been crushed by the White House and GOP leadership.

This being election season, everything needs to be viewed through a political lens. And while some Republicans candidates are distancing themselves from their unpopular president in campaign commercials, they are aware that ferociously pounding Democrats for being weak on national security has worked very well for them in the last two election cycles.

The White House and the Republican leadership believe embracing the president's warrantless wiretapping program and detainee proposals are key to surviving the November elections.

But the effects of the legislation Congress is considering this week will last far beyond November. And critics argue that the White House's approach won't help protect the country so much as put captured American soldiers at risk, further blacken America's image abroad, legitimize unconstitutional treatment of detainees, erode privacy rights, cede congressional authority and institutionalize what has thus far been the extralegal assertion of nearly unchecked, and therefore potentially corrupting power, to this president as well as those to come.

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A Spot Of Humor as Laignnippe!
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Really Sorry

Remember how Washington Post columnist David S. Broder recently called on reporters who he said had falsely maligned Karl Rove to apologize?

Eric Mink writes in his column for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Since the revelation about Armitage, I've done a lot of soul searching. I went back to the voluminous official legal filings of the prosecution and defense in the Libby case. . . .

"I looked again at press coverage of the story stretching back nearly three years. . . .

"After reviewing all this material, I feel obliged to say: I'm sorry Karl Rove . . . still has a job."

[MannyGoldstein]

1. Have No Fear! The Brave Congressional Democrats Are Here!

They'll use every tool at their disposal to ensure that Americans retain their basic civil liberties, and that America will live up to its obligations of providing basic human rights to combatants.

[indepat]

2. Every time the Repug Congress votes in near lockstep fashion to

ramrod some wrong-headed, unconstitutional, un-American, fiscally irresponsible, or otherwise disastrous legislation is a defining moment and that's almost every piece of legislation passed in the past 68 months.