You know, they keep saying it, and so I keep coming back to it:
HOW will you exercise oversight with an executive that will lie to you, defraud you, refuse to obey laws, refuse to recognize the legitimacy of your subpoenas, withholds information, misdirects appropriations as he sees fit, even to wage undeclared wars, will employ illegal domestic spying, retaliate against and even prosecute whistleblowers, defies court decisions, breaks treaties at will, uses propaganda, pays off journalists, uses classified information for political purposes, and censors factual information?
HOW? How will you exercise oversight when these abuses of power and criminal activities are POLICY?
How do you propose to investigate this administration? And, do you propose to investigate matters that are well documented cases for REMOVAL FROM OFFICE with the information that we already have?
What's the point of doing THAT?
OK, so the investigations are purely political then? Keep the insane, incompetent executive in office and just beat up on him for a couple of years? What about the CONSEQUENCES of allowing his crimes to continue?
Let me get this straight: You don't want to impeach and remove these dangerous criminals because that would seem too political, so you are going to allow them to continue their criminal activities for political purposes?
Oh, but it's not about politics, right? You have legislation you want to pass, right? Great! That liar will make a big show of how "bipartisan" he is. He will sign your legislation, and after all the smiles and photo-ops, helping him repair his image, he will issue a signing statement an hour later abolishing or rewriting the legislation by fiat. That's been his policy. It is his policy.
HOW.WILL.YOU.STOP.HIM?
Are you going to let him play this game for a year and then say "Oh, well! The presidential campaign is under way. No need to try to stop him now!"
If that's your plan, you will pay a price for it. Things will go to hell. And that smiling "bipartisan" and his toadies will place the blame for everything that goes wrong around your necks. His party will campaign against you for being weak, ineffectual and corrupt. YES, CORRUPT! They will tag every normal function of government as a "sweetheart deal" and some kind of kickback scheme.
You will allow them to frame the argument that EVERYONE is corrupt, EVERYONE is a liar and a thief. What incentive will there be for ANYONE to be honest, hard-working and law abiding? You will sow the destruction of our country. Crime will become uncontrollably rampant as the haves take more and more, and the have nots decide that corruption is a way of life. It will breed hatred and violence like you never could have believed possible.
And your smiling fascists have just the prescription for it.
More jails. Aggressive domestic surveilliance. Military tactics for law enforcement. Stripping civil liberties to unclog the courts. Military courts under Bush's control. Mass detention centers. Greater restriction on the peoples mobility, speech, access to the media, ability to get or hold jobs, ability to get or hold property, ability to organize for labor or political action, ability to sue in court. They are trying to do these things NOW!
And the more restrictive it gets, the more people will decide they have nothing to lose. And you will have terrorism. That's what it will be called by the fascists. To those waging it, though, it will be called guerrilla warfare. For self-determination. For Freedom.
That's what is PREVENTED by the rule of law. That's what is PREVENTED by the constitution, and rights, and due process. That's what's PREVENTED by a lawful response to corruption and abuses of power.
Yes, GROWNUPS, there is a lot at stake. There is much to be lost if you decide to break faith with the people and give Bush and Cheney a pass.
But you know better, right? Telling us you know better sounds a lot like the self-assured hubris of the people who are committing the crimes and abuses of office, whom we want removed.
Did you decide "Well HELL! If they can get away with all that, then we're set! We can do whatever we want to do!" If that's what you have in mind, then you are more lost than you know.
Do you think we are children? Out of the mouths of babes.....Heard that one?
I'm still waiting for answers to the questions:
HOW will you exercise oversight?
HOW will you manage to pass legislation that will be executed?
HOW will you make leaving Bush and Cheney in office into a political advantage?
I haven't seen ANY reasonable responses to those questions. Your priorities and agenda seem just as unmoored from practical empirical reality as your opponents.
A final thought. Some of the self-assurance of the "grownups" stems from their relative certainty that Hillary Clinton will be the next president. So they will allow Bush to "act to create new realities" for the next two years.
And that's where the "grownup" strategy is a big gamble. You really don't get just how dangerous it can be to leave Bush and Cheney in office. But if you get an example of it, you'll rue the loss of the opportunity to remove them. And you won't be forgiven for it.
Are the Democratic leaders aware that Bush is currently planning to attack Iran with nuclear weapons? Are they aware that the weapons have been deployed to theater and are standing by, as I write this? Are they aware that the Joint Chiefs have unanimously opposed Bush's plan to set in motion a full scale regional war in the Middle East? Are they aware that the brass is stepping down rather than follow his orders? Are they aware that, as of right now, the new Sec Def is reviewing replacements for these generals?
Will the replacements be eager and willing to kill a million people and slaughter entire cities, unleashing hell on earth? Well, we don't know.
Do the Democratic leaders know?
Do they know that the Cheney/Rumsfeld war plan, which includes "pre-emptive" use of nuclear weapons against a charter member of the UN who is NOT a threat to us, ASSUMES that a "9/11-type attack" on America will kick off this military strategy? How do they assume that? And how do they assume Iran is responsible for this hypothetical massacre?
Do the "grownups" know that there is an office set up to fabricate pro-war propaganda for this effort? Sound familiar? It's the kind of criminal activity that the "grownups" think is too risky to put on trial with regard to the CURRENT fiasco in Iraq!
I will be greatly relieved if Bush fails to put this strategy into action before the new Congress convenes, but it's gonna be a pretty narrow escape from disaster. Biblical proportion disaster.
And if he is contemplating THIS, then what kind of evil holocausts will he unleash if left in office for two more years? WE DON'T KNOW. I DON'T WANNA FIND OUT.
I haven't bothered to link anything here. But you can find the info relatively easily. The nuke war plan was leaked over a year ago. The Iran Desk was reported in the mainstream press in the past few months. A reporter with sources onboard naval vessels has written to sound the alarm about the plan to nuke Iran. They are standing by, RIGHT NOW.
My point is this: I haven't seen any reasonable proposal to restrain Bush and Cheney from committing more crimes of insanity and evil. From what I see, there ISN'T any way to conduct "oversight" of them or get legislation enacted that will rein them in or counterbalance the policies they have enacted and put in practice.
Removal from office won't be easy. But you better stop patronizing us by telling us you have other options, when you really don't. None of the proposals being put forth are things you have the luxury of time to attempt. It isn't removal from office that would be an unnecessary waste of time. It's anything else that you try to do with Bush and Cheney in office. That's the waste of time.