In the 1980s, when Reagan was opposed by a Democratic Congress, all the wailing was precisely the opposite: that “divided government” was the problem and many liberals (and some GOP elitists in Washington) toyed with “fusion of powers” and related other changes to our system of government. Now, just as after the 1994 elections, liberals are “discovering” how wondeful separation of powers is — until their future Dem president is hamstrung as Clinton was by a Congress that wouldn’t be a rubber stamp. You’ll demand that rubber stamp once we have President Clinton again.

On a related note, what would have been the prospects currently under a parliamentary system of a no-confidence vote being taken against Bush and his administration? When would such a vote have first been taken? And the outcome?

“This scandal points up the benefits of divided government where there is authentic, vigorous oversight.” - Joe gandelman

Anyway, just wanted to offer up a prop on the “High Noon” metaphor. I have been tracking this president v. congress conflict in a series of blog posts since the beginning of the year, and have been struggling with maintaining metaphorical consistency. I started with boxing, evolved to WWF Steel Cage Wrestling match, and most recently settled on the Battle of the Pellennor Fields during the siege of Minas Tirith. that was a bit over the top. I think I’ll just steal “High Noon” for the next round.

Uh, what “missing emails?” I news-googled it, and there’s zip. Maybe you have a reference? (no conspiricy theory sites, please)

Now even if no real law has been broken by the WH or DOJ, is this the way we want our US attorneys to function in this country? What kind of justice is this? It violates standard these guys have, and teaches them to put politics over their own judgment.

I live in Washington, so I can answer that one.

They expected McKay (and Secretary of State Sam Reed, another GOP politician who put the law above party loyalty) to bring charges of vote fraud, even though there was no evidence of enough deliberate fraudulent votes to have changed the outcome of the election.

That’s how vote fraud law works in Washington: it’s not enough for there to have been some fraudulent votes (which any election is going to have. There has to have been deliberate fraud, and there has to have been enough deliberate fraud to have changed the outcome of the election.

That excludes inadvertant mistakes. Such as, as happened here, some convicted felons received ballots in the mail and thought that meant they could legally vote, so they did.

It also means the losing candidate can’t just claim that all the fraudulent and/or mistaken votes went to the winning candidate. In fact, a review of deliberate fraudulent votes cast in the 2004 Governor’s race resulted in four votes being subtracted from Rossi’s total.

But the GOP expected McKay to ignore the law, and the results of the review, and either toss out the election (which there’s no provision in Washington law for, so he couldn’t have done so) or just declare Rossi the winner.

What did they expect McKay to do?

All “Skull and Bonesmen” for sure. When both candidates for president come from the same elite club, one has to wonder about the nature of choice in the US.

Rudi the Analytical Red said: “These four were Conservatives before K-Lopez and Johan Goldberg were even born. They don’t have the homo-erotic fanasties like Fred Barnes over the Decider….”

For a moment, I read that as “J-Lopez” heheh. Ain’t touching Fred Barnes fantasies…homoerotic or otherwise. Actually, I don’t know much about the other three at all, Rudi, so I can’t comment. I thought Barr was a loon under Clinton, and continues to be wacko today…see his interview in “Borat”.

I do know that Bush has infuriated many conservatives…not as many as the GOP on Capitol Hill, who are numbnuts supreme…but certainly a great many. Probably because Bush never really was a conservative like his papa (or maybe, to be Freudian, because his papa was one).

Truflo said: “And this after the allegation of voter fraud had been investigated by the FBI who found no case to answer.”

That was the Rossi-Gregoire case, which I followed closely at the time. For folks who didn’t: the GOP won the governor’s race in Washington State by a close margin on election night in 2004…the doorknob GOP candidate Rossi then took off on vacation in the Caribbean for weeks, while the Democrats began swamping the courts with petition after petition for recounts and playing the media. They eventually got the votes they needed. There was a court case that decided it…not an FBI inquiry…it was found that election laws were violated with felons being sent ballots, as well as all sorts of bizarre goings-on in King County. The election stunk to high heaven, but the judge said it was nonetheless not in the public interest to overturn the election.

That was why the GOP were furious at McKay. It wasn’t a clean election by any means (both GOP and Dems agreed the felons should not have received hundreds of ballots…but there was no way of addressing that post-election). The presumption was that the felons would have voted Dem, but as the judge said, no way to prove how they voted.

Truflo: Did you ever get your daughter to eat her veges?

We’ve been a dictatorship by committee since 1981…i’m calling out EVERYONE for running this country into the ground. My venom knows no political boundaries…however, the past 6 years of the 26 year dictatorship has been as blatant as ever in my opinion. So I’ll just leave it at that…these cats need to burn for what they’re doing…

The US-A scandal may not be illegal, but for those of us who care about our justice system, it is a crisis barely diverted and one which demands we remain ever vigilant when it comes to this administration.

Are you not concerned at all by what, in one instance at least, we know was attempted by a senior member of the republican party, namely that the chairman of that party in Washington pressurised a US attorney to drag innocent people before a grand jury in order to weaken the democratic opposition in that state? And this after the allegation of voter fraud had been investigated by the FBI who found no case to answer.

Thankfully, and may he be honoured for it, John McKay refused Chairman Vance’s demands and as a result lost his job.

It may not be illegal to keep dead rats under your floorboards but pretty soon no one wants to live in the same house as you, well almost no one.

Eat your damn vegetables!

And not every liberal or current anti-bush hates bush or hated him from the beginning. If we do hate him, he has certainly earned that hate. Also, the ‘bush-hating’ defense is itself immature since republicans had a clinton hating frenzy for the entire time he was in office, and even went after him for missteps in his private life.

In all honesty, no comparison between what clinton did and what bush is doing can or should be made. bush is president now, and what has he gotten us into? an immoral/illegal war that we are losing, debt up to our eyeballs, loss of respect around the world, an overstretched and weakening military, and the erosion of our constitutional protections.

Well one must admit this reasoning has been a favorite of both the administration and it’s supporters.

“If you have nothing to hide why should you care if we listen in on your calls?”

Spin it how you want Marlowe, but do you seriously think the American public, in it’s current mood, is going to respond positively to “you can ask them anything they want so long as you don’t insist they tell the truth or make any record of what they said”?

Think about it for a second. We recall this same reasoning when the 9/11 commission wanted to question Bush and Cheney. It was a huge mistake to let them get away with it then. One we won’t make again.

If Congress thinks they are not getting the full story, they have every right to subpoena those involved. If the executive stonewalls, we could have a nice minirevival of the Watergate years. Which would be entertaining if nofhing else to watch them squirm on camera. BTW, what about Truflo’s point about 20 days of missing e-mails?

I gather the WH (regardless of the President) avoids this for fear of establishing a precedent. This may be self-serving in this case…and, indeed, in others in the past…but that is the nature of Executive Privilege.

“Bush’s choice to use a partisan attack on Democrats makes it look even worse…”

Bush is playing to his base, which is furious that he isn’t responding to the Democrats. Of course this is partisan, Kritter. The Democratic base is enraged that their elected members are afraid to pull the plug on the war, and so their members are feeding them the next best thing…strips they can tear off Chimphitler.

Again, why testify? Where is the criminality? Maybe in Gonzales testimony to Congress. But what has Bush done that’s possibly criminal here? or Rove? or Miers? Has anyone even claimed any specific laws were broken on this issue? No break-ins at the DNC lately….

Personally, I hope Congress passes legislation removing all partisanship from US-As selections…as well as tighter restrictions on FBI activity. Congressional oversight is obviously necessary…even when partisan.