Polls show that Congress has fallen to new lows in public opinion surveys-- even lower than President Bush! I believe that this shows a failure of Democratic Party senior leadership.
The public wants the war to end. So what does the leadership do? They make a little gesture of opposition, but then when President Bush vetoes their bill, they cave in and send him all the money he wants, whining and wringing their hands about not having 60 votes.
But the reality is that Congress doesn't have to vote any money at all. Does the President want to veto? Fine. Send him the same war ending bill again. and again. and again. Tell him you want money for the war? Then agree to end it. No excuses. The true leader here is John Edwards: No timelines? No funds. No excuses. That's what most of America wants.
The president wants to tap our phones without court oversight, and he wants to immunize the people who broke the law at his request. Everyone knows laws were broken, and now the President wants to grant immunity to all those who helped him break the law, and he wants authority to do, legally, what he has been doing illegally. So what does our fine Democratic leadership do? Last August, they allowed a bad bill to the floor for a vote, and failed to use their discretionary authority to manage the better bill. The result? A bill was passed that legalized what had been illegal, took oversight away from the courts, and let the fox guard the hen house. Fortunately that bill was temporary. But now our glorious leadership is once again trying to cut back room deals with the White House to get immunity for crimes already committed, for the price of allowing a few senators to peek at some of the information Congress had subpoenaed under controlled access, without fully complying with the subpoenas.
In the face of such feckless official leadership, a true leader has emerged: Sen. Chris Dodd has put a "hold" on the senate bill. But, not to be denied, our official majority leader, Harry Reid, has apparently taken the unusual step of attempting to schedule a vote on this bad bill anyway. True leader Dodd now promises to filibuster the bill, if necessary, until the offensive provisions are withdrawn. And other Senators, Feingold and Biden, are supporting him.
Speaker Pelosi apparently admires President Bush as "The Decider"-- so immediately after assuming office as Speaker, if not even before, she decided, unilaterally, to take impeachment off the table. Her autocratic decree has provided cover for the rape of the Constitution by Bush and Cheney. True leader Dennis Kucinich has offered a resolution of impeachment against VP Cheney, H.Res. 333, which now has 20 co-sponsors. Since Kucinich's proposed articles of impeachment were written, evidence for many more impeachable actions has been accumulating. Conservative Republican Bruce Fein now counts eight impeachable offenses.
If Speaker Pelosi would allow the House Judiciary to launch impeachment hearings, those hearings could provide an unstoppable way of investigating these allegations and collecting appropriate evidence so that only the strongest articles of impeachment would be forwarded to the Senate. These investigations could reveal information that would convince enough Republicans to support these articles to assure a bipartisan outcome.
The official leaders of the Democratic Party have become morally bankrupt. They have lost their moral compass in favor of triangulating for power they hope to reap in next year's elections, placing all their bets on that outcome. They have apparently abandoned their oath of office to defend the Constitution in favor of schemes intended to maximize partisan advantage in next year's elections.
They apparently want to kick the can down the road. We can hold them accountable later, they say. Even Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair Lynn Woolsey says so. But if a Democrat does become president, there will be enormous pressure to "heal the country" and "let bygones be bygones" and "we've got to move on", etc. The time to impeach is NOW since its too late to do it yesterday!
I think the Democratic Party would do better in next year's elections, and Congress would get better ratings, if they would follow true leaders John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich. I have asked my congressman to take note of their leadership, and act accordingly. I also asked him to please ignore the false leadership of Pelosi, Reid and others that has lead Congress to impotence and public scorn.