Saturday, July 21, 2007

Another reason Congress is at 14% - Good post from Andy McCarthy on the U.S. attorneys "scandal": "The U.S. Attorney Firings: It's Politics, Not Law"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a good post, an EXCELLENT post. The only eensy-teensy-weensy thing it leaves out is this:

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all... [it] is almost Nixonian in its scope and breadth of interpreting its power. Congress has no recourse at all, in the president's view. . . . It's allowing the executive to define the scope and limits of its own powers."


As for the "14% Congress," if you want to think this extralegal showdown helps 2008 Republican candidates and hurts Democratic ones, you go right ahead. But that's not politics, and it's not law either: it's clicking your heels three times, letting your heart making a wish, and saying, "There's no place like 1994, there's no place like 1994, there's no place..."

Anonymous said...

Yes, that pesky Constitution that states a President can dismiss an attorney general for any reason. The same one that mandates that military control rests solely with the executive branch - crazy, I know.

As for the GOP picking up seats in 2008: that was a lucid rebuttal of an argument I, um, never made. In fact, I've written just the opposite a couple of times. You showed "me", er "you", well one of us.

But then what difference does it make who controls Congress when the Democrats have done absolutely nothing. Well, that's not fair: I think they renamed some post offices.

Anonymous said...

But if it's not all about 2008... or about how Republicans are more popular or with-it than Democrats... or your detection of some imaginary public approval groundswell for Bush firing U.S. attorneys... then, er, who the heck cares about 14%?

Maybe Harry Reid should just claim he "doesn't look at polls," and wish it all away into the cornfield. That's done absolute wonders for George.

And if 2008's not relevant or "lucid," how does "military control rests solely with the executive branch - crazy, I know" make the cut?

Continue with the "do-nothing Dems" meme, though; it's sure to have at least as much political power as "obstructionist Dems" did. It's comical that the GOP getting a few (but not all) of their judges confirmed after literally years of whining and bitching was a triumph, but the Dems are pathetic failures because they haven't yet used their 51-49 bludgeon to stop a trillion-dollar war... and jeez, it's already been WEEKS!