The uneasy coexistence of President Bush and the Democratic Congress is over. They are now officially at war with one another.
We were all happy in November when the new Congress was elected and the American public overwhelmingly propelled the new Democratic majority into power. There was even talk that with the Republican majority gone from Congress, there was more common ground between Congressional leaders and Bush on a range of issues, such as immigration reform. All that was flushed down the toilet and is now circling the drain with Bush's recess appointments over the Easter holiday.
You knew the dam was going to break. First we renewed the proper oversight in Congress of everything in our nation and found that the slimy fingers of the Republican machine had infiltrated every cabinet agency and every program for the common good across the country. The GSA and the Justice Department are just the most overt ones. Interference at the Environmental Protection and Fish and Wildlife agencies have wreaked havoc with our scientific standing in the world. It's like Bush collected all the people in the country who didn't believe in climate change and stuck them into the government where they could do the most harm. Now extend that to every federal agency and you'll have what all Republican voters fear... Big Government that intrudes on the lives of ordinary citizens.
Congress had to do something about occupation, err war, funding this time around and they actually developed the intestinal fortitude to ram a bill with some teeth through the Congress. You could just see the desperation on the face of the President when the House and then the Senate voted for withdrawal dates to be set in their respective bills. Bush even gambled and told McConnell in the Senate not to filibuster so that the bill would go through, all the while threatening to dust off the veto pen in the name of the troops fighting in Iraq. Too bad that meant election fodder for all those Republicans (except Hagel and Smith) who voted against realistic readiness conditions for our troops and continued troop funding.
But today, with the flurry of recess appointments, I believe the President has signaled his disdain for working with Congress. There is no hope for any working relationship with this President, as many of us knew beforehand but were still hoping against hope. And I think these appointments seal the deal.
I think we're hoping that the President will realize that Congress will not back down and he'll be forced to sign a bill that has a deadline in it. But I don't think he will back down... he doesn't know how to back down, which is not a compliment. Just imagine if Iran had taken American sailors in this past border skirmish with Britain. Does anyone think that ultimatums wouldn't be flying, along with missiles and jet fighters.
Sure, he'll try to talk away the disagreements with Congress, all the while belittling its authority, and putting our troops in the middle of the whole debacle. And if this had happened in 2002 or 2003 perhaps there would have been a different outcome, but now, with the public firmly against the occupation, Bush won't come out of this as shiny and fresh-smelling as Clinton in 2005. How much did it sting to have his Patriot Act powers of naming US Attorneys taken away. A lot, I'm sure.
Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid are doing the right thing, in publicly expressing their hope that the President will work with them, but privately, it appears that contingency plans have been in the works for a long time on how to proceed with legislation, not only for the occupation but also for oversight investigations. I wouldn't be surprised if our newly-minted Fearless Dems had a good response to these recess appointments pre-planned. But in truth, another breaking scandal right now will only get drowned out in the noise. Hopefully our representatives are back at home attending veterans' rallies and townhall meetings right now and enlisting some help from those who have served. What better way to fight a hot war with the President than to call on some reinforcements from the front.
And seeing how President Bush has fought the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we should expect some "shock and awe" in the form of veto threats and recess appointments, but no post-war planning. Then we'll see how the President reacts to being hoodwinked, with his legacy in tatters.