Reply #12: Actually, I just read this article by Geoffrey Epps that attempts to get at the reasons

[Hissyspit]

historically and institutionally, why the administration is still in power:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x107703

The power of King George
This week Bush made another executive power grab -- and our own Constitution is largely to blame.
By Garrett Epps

Feb. 01, 2007 | Washington was treated to a curious American spectacle on Monday. A president repudiated by virtually every sector of the political system has responded by arrogating more power to himself.

Under the executive order Bush signed Monday, federal regulators will answer to a new set of Bush appointees in each agency, who will determine whether their proposed rules properly serve the Bush agenda. As Peter Strauss of the Columbia Law School told the New York Times, "Having lost control of Congress, the president is doing what he can to increase his control of the executive branch."

Bush's administrative power grab points to a serious flaw in the American system: our uniquely powerful, politically unaccountable executive. Americans take this system for granted -- we are taught in high school that it was designed by far-seeing statesmen. We seldom even notice how often it misfires, with results ranging from opera buffa (like the Clinton impeachment) to dangerous constitutional crisis (like the Nixon impeachment).

Crisis is what we are facing now. Public opinion has decisively turned against the president's war in Iraq, with voters dissenting where our system says they should -- at the polls. Congress, the supposed locus of the power to "declare war," is belatedly registering its disapproval of Bush's inept conduct of that war. Even the normally secretive military and national-security bureaucracies are busily signaling their objections to the commander in chief's plans.

In virtually any other advanced democracy in the world, government personnel and policy would by now reflect this political earthquake: Either the chief executive would have resigned, or the parties would have coalesced in a government of national unity. But here, the repudiated leader is escalating his war and proclaiming, "I'm the decision maker." Regarding Congress, Bush said during a recent "60 Minutes" interview, "They could try to stop me from doing it. But I made my decision, and we're going forward." And now the president appears to be barreling toward a confrontation with Iran.