I'll get right to the point. I share the disappointment that is rife around here regarding the inability of the democratic party in Congress to stand up to Bush over the war in Iraq. But I do not share in the pessimism, nor do I intend to abandon the democratic party. I strongly encourage all progressives to take a deep breath, and consider the following observations below the fold.

I rarely venture into IP territory. As Plutonium Page has aptly put it, "[t]hese diaries are no place for the non-violent." Having seen what have appeared to me to be reasonable diaries and comments get, first sidetracked, and then sucked into the vortex of animosity, I have chosen discretion over valor. No matter how interesting, informative, or compelling I find a thread, when the comments reach the fourth indent and stay there, I go elsewhere.

I was nonetheless disturbed when Hunter posted his warning last week. I do not want this subject to be off-limits for a number of reasons -- most of them articulately stated by Litho this past Saturday. To which I add a personal reason -- that I genuinely feel that much of what goes on at dkos is community education, and this is an area in which my own education in public affairs has been rather superficial.

More below, with a poll.

Some recent exchanges have left me with the following  question: Are TU's expected to explain by way of comment why they have troll rated another comment? I'm looking for guidance on this, so if you have some, please help me out. I've looked (again) at the FAQ's and have re-read Hunter's piece on troll rating, and I don't see anything that supports such a norm or expectation. On the other hand, I have seen a number of comments, of the "who dares . . ." variety, that suggest that troll raters are expected to identify themselves and explain their use of the ratings. I've also seen a number of folks who seem generally to explain their doughnuts, regardless of whether an explanation has been asked for (or demanded).  

I'm still learning my way around here, but it seems to me that there are many instances in which frequent and repeated explanations of a doughnut quickly deteriorate into "did too--did not" territory. When that happens, others often join the fray, until we almost inevitably get
to the "maybe you didn't today, but I saw what you did yesterday" kind of stuff, which frankly reminds me of Reagan's "there you go again . . . ." Discussion then tends to be about the merits of the TR rather than anyone's ideas about anything.

more below.

I enjoy trying to come up with creative ways for the Unitary Congress to flex its dormant muscle. This one popped into my head while reading that Cheney's latest shot at the Senate Majority leader came while Cheney was visiting the capitol. I thought, "hey, that's where he's supposed to be." So, I think Reid should try this -- but only if he wants to see Broder have a seizure.

Our founding parents, bless their hearts, could come up with only one regular job for the Vice President to perform: "The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided." And until Nixon inherited the office in 1953, the Vice President did actually preside over the Senate with some regularity. So, I think there is a lot to be said for making sure that the Vice President is performing his constitutionally mandated duties. I think at the very least, a change in the Senate's rules is in order, and perhaps even some legislation, to make sure that every day that the Senate is in session, Mr. Cheney sits his ass down, plugs in his medical apparatus, picks up his gavel,  and scowls for the camera.

More below.

I have been waiting for one of our candidates to do more than simply jump on the Gonzo bandwagon, decry the rampant politicization at Justice, and call for his resignation.  Its time for a strong statement about what the next president will do to salvage the DOJ. Accordingly, here's what I'd like to hear from Richardson, Obama, Edwards, Clinton, Kucinich -- anyone:

It becomes more apparent every day that for 6 years the United States Department of Justice has been a fraud on the american people. It has not been a separate department -- it has been operated directly out of the white house as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the worst elements of the republican party. It has not been dedicated to justice for americans -- it has been dedicated to winning elections for republican candidates, protecting corrupt officeholders from scrutiny, and embellishing the resumes of young, overly-zealous and minimally-qualified reactionaries. If I am elected, this will stop.

more below.

Whenever the news media explodes with the newest manifestation of man's apparent creativity in the destruction of innocent life -- as it has with the tragedy at Virginia Tech -- I think of a book that I read years ago. "Wisconsin Death Trip" was a fascinating book by Michael Lesy, published in 1973 by Random House, and now out of print. It was sent to me about 25 years ago by my brother, who is always forwarding strange and unusual works of fact and fiction that he discovers in his travels. I read them all, with varying degrees of enthusiasm (I have to admit, "Are You A Transhuman", by FM-2030, was a struggle). But Lesy's quiet and troubling work of historical interpretation left a deep impression on me.

Making use of photographic and newspaper archives, Lesy examines a small Wisconsin community during the period of 1890 to 1910. The photographs and the stories present recurring images of death, murder, suicide and madness, that are both surprising and familiar. To state the obvious -- which is somewhat obscured in the reporting from Blacksburg this week -- we have been killing ourselves and others in wildly imaginative ways, in obscure places, and for unfathomable reasons for a very long time.

More below.

I've been following the live blog and trying to figure out where Abu fits within the larger conflict between the white house and congress. I think we see a key in the performance of some of the repo senators, as well as in Abu's testimony.

The larger context, of course, is that the white house is battling to keep Karl and his Roving band of RNC servers out of the Congress' clutches -- and don't be fooled, Bush may want to keep Abu, but he needs to keep Rove. The move by Congress to request RNC e-mails directly from the RNC has exposed the white house, for the first time, to the serious prospect that rather than waiting on Congress to find a U.S. attorney who will prosecute a contempt action, it is now the white house that will have to go to court, in the event Congress issues subpoenas to the RNC, to quash those subpoenas.

More below.

Note: I intended to post this diary yesterday, but felt preempted by wardlow's excellent diary. At her invitation, however, I post this anyway, because the thrust of both diaries is that now is the time for progressives to take our experience and frustrations with the current administration and demand that the presidential candidates address the deeper questions that have not been asked in the past. And chief among these deeper questions is the nature of presidential power.

I do not recall from the 2000 election a single instance in which a candidate for president was asked anything about his (or her) philosophy of executive power. And yet, the likely composition of a Bush administration was much discussed, and the writings and speeches of the major players a matter of public record. The 'unitary executive', the 'project for a new american century', and Cheney's thoughts on future energy/foreign policy were all there to see. These writings and speeches were predicated on the very view of raw presidential power that we now see.

More below.

The reference is to this item from earlier in the week (courtesy of a gnostic):

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, told "Hardball" fill-in host David Gregory that if the 'surge' has not yielded success in Iraq by August 2008, then "this president, and the Republican majority from the last Congress, we do have a 'Plan B,' but we're not going to give it to the enemy."

Could Plan B be a draft? The obvious answer to the question is, "with this administration, who knows?" Seriously, the answer should be no, but then most folks thought 6 months ago that we were getting the Baker plan. But in any event, we should be all over Mr. Gingrey and the apparently 'undead' 109th Congress about this little ploy.  

We need to put immediate pressure on the repo's to answer the question: "Is Plan B the draft?" You see, I don't think they can give a good answer to this question. And without a very good answer, the american people may begin to wonder about this Plan B.

Gingrey's statement is predicated, of course, on the surge not working out by August 2008 (conveniently, the time of the democratic convention, I believe). More below

Despite the dedicated efforts of journalists like Jeremy Scahill and the many diarists on this site, the MSM has not yet caught hold of this story: There are now something like 100,000 private 'contractors' in Iraq, essentially a mercenary army, largely on the payroll of Blackwater USA. Blackwater's presence in Iraq is largely funded through contracts with the Department of State. Without those contractors, Bush would not be talking about a 20,000 or 30,000 troop surge. Do the math. He would have long since demanded an escalation on the order of Vietnam, post-Tet.

Many of us object in principle to the idea of these private armies -- whether on foreign or on domestic soil. The Declaration of Independence condemned George III's use of such armies, as we have condemned George the W's use of them in Iraq and in New Orleans.

But it strikes me that Blackwater could be the soft underbelly of Bush's continued occupation of Iraq, as well as his plans for the rest of the region. I would propose, therefore, that the Democrats in Congress inform Bush that if he vetoes the emergency supplemental appropriation bill, then the Congress will take action to require that the Department of State immediately terminate its contracts with Blackwater.

The Preznit took a break from his perp rally yesterday to attend ceremonies at the Capitol Rotunda honoring the surviving members of the famed "Tuskegee Airmen". Many of you know the story. When the armed forces were still segregated during WWII the Army Air Corps was ordered by Roosevelt to form an all-african-american unit of flyers and their support. Over 1,000 fighter pilots were eventually trained at a base in Tuskegee, Alabama, and shipped off to Europe to fight the nazi's. The Tuskegee Airmen went on to have a record of amazing success in the war in Europe. Upon their return, of course, they were forgotten by white america and resumed their previous status as second-class citizens in civilian life.

Yesterday this unit was collectively awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. In his remarks at the ceremony, Bush had this to say:

"Even the Nazis asked why African American men would fight for a country that treated them so unfairly," President Bush told the group of legendary black aviators, who received a Congressional Gold Medal — the most prestigious Congress has to offer.

My apologies for the gendered title, but that’s the phrase we hear so prominently each election cycle. Or in polite conversations about politics with our next door neighbors. "Oh, I vote for the man, not the party." Whenever I hear this, I think, ‘what a lot of crap.’ Before you fly off, please read on.

Like most of us here, I am a democrat.  I’m sure my parents had a lot to do with that, not so much by making clear to me their party preferences but in the sorts of things they taught me to care about. I’m sure a lot of repo’s can say the same thing. But this thing about being a democrat is important to me.

Find out why below the break.

Somewhat lost in all the fonts dedicated to BushCo’s claims of executive power and secrecy is the fact that there is already pending before Congress a bill that will make some inroads into the unitary executive and executive privilege. I am referring to H.R. 1255, The Presidential Records Act Amendments, which recently passed in the House but is pending in the Senate. Although this Bill has been mentioned on this site in legislative updates by On the Bus and by KazHooker, I must confess that I only found it by following one of the more compelling loose threads in the U.S. Attorney purge.  Because it so perfectly illustrates how all of these issues are intertwined, I present it to you now, as I found it, with a request that you take some action to get your Senator interested in it, as well.  

VermontGriz hit the mojo jackpot with today’s post on Snowjob’s latest constitutional pronouncement (maybe Snow is jockeying for that soon to be available position at Justice). Several commentors, however, picked up on what continues to be the real issue at stake in this debate: Congress’ enforcement power.

Of course Snow is wrong when he says that Congress has no oversight power with respect to the Executive Branch (and all those executive agencies). And although the Constitutional sources of Congressional  authority are largely implied, that authority has been recognized by the federal courts for quite some time. It is no longer subject to reasonable question that Congress can conduct investigative hearings to aid it in proposing or reviewing legislation, as well as to investigate such issues as public waste, fraud or corruption.

Good news. From the front page of what passes as a newspaper in my hometown came the following yesterday morning:

"Saying the government has not always paid enough attention to religious discrimination, the country's top law enforcement official picked a gathering of Southern Baptist leaders in Nashville on Tuesday to announce a renewed push to protect religious freedoms.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the establishment of a new Religious Freedom Task Force and stepped up enforcement efforts.
"One of our most cherished freedoms ... is our religious liberties," Gonzales told the gathering of about 100 Southern Baptists at the denomination's national headquarters in downtown Nashville. "Nothing defines us more as Americans."
But, he said, religious discrimination is "an area of law that has not always been given sufficient attention by our government."
The Department of Justice's "First Freedom Project" will review religious discrimination complaints, hold seminars to educate religious leaders about how to file complaints and launch a Web site with information on religious liberty laws, Gonzales said."

For those of you who are, like me, geographically-challenged, Bush has not opened up another front in his War on Terror in some previously unheard-of part of the world. The title refers to my brief review yesterday of political blogs on the dark underside of the internet, in search of some support for the upcoming ‘stab-in-the-back’ interpretation of the disaster previously known as Iraq. This interpretation, as those of you with a working knowledge of the 20th century know, posits that "We (insert name of losing side) were winning until we were stabbed in the back by (insert name of scapegoat). "  

Recent indications from the Republican congressional leadership are that the upcoming scapegoat will be essentially everyone else -- but especially the liberal media, for reporting only the bad news from Iraq. By implication, there must be some good news, right? Vice President Cheney drove the point home, recently, with his  statement that the U.S. has made "enormous progress" in Iraq. By further implication, someone must be reporting that good news somewhere.