The Dry Powder Dividend

Here's a dangerous combination of circumstances.

First, in D.C.:

A federal appeals court granted the White House a temporary delay in turning over documents to a House committee investigating the firings of nine U.S. attorneys.

A three-judge panel ordered the stay on Thursday, the deadline set by the House Judiciary Committee for White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten to provide the records. The order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also will probably delay the appearance of former White House Counsel Harriet Miers before the committee. She is scheduled to testify next Thursday.

Second, in... Alaska:

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.

Once again, sporks to a gunfight. The McCain campaign is dispatching lawyers and operatives to Alaska, preparing to meet this issue and fight it head-on as if it were Florida 2000 all over again. Democrats, it seems, are pinning their hopes to state legislators and regular order.

Why should Dems approach this differently? We discussed the dangers of Troopergate yesterday. But let me reiterate the central points once again:

1. Cheneyism -- that is, the legalistic resistance to oversight in every form and at every juncture -- is gelling as precedent and is spreading to the states.
2. Sarah Barracuda GantryWindrip is now positioned to take the reins of a Vice Presidency gone wild, and marry her brand of Nixonism -- that is, the use of the power of office to settle personal and political scores by leveraging the mechanisms of state against her enemies -- to the principles of Cheneyism, which grafts the veneer of legality onto these vendettas, and (this is key) rebuffs all attempts to challenge this illegal exercise of power as "criminalizing politics."

Alaskans are right now seeing the same blunt refusal to permit or even acknowledge the propriety of legislative investigations of the executive that we've already been watching for years in D.C., even as its perpetrator is being foisted upon us as a successor to Cheney.

So what kind of government do we think we'll have left if she gets to cash in on the Dry Powder Dividend and continue Cheney's work? Will we see the CIA renditioning people who cut Todd off in traffic? Or something much, much worse?