After a humiliating retreat on Iraq funding and with abysmal approval ratings, Congressional Democrats go back to work for a war of attrition with the White House this summer. Whatever else they do, Democrats should press Sen. Byrd’s effort to overturn the 2002 resolution that sanctioned the invasion of Iraq–for more reasons than one. Strategically, if they are successful, the struggle will migrate to the Supreme Court for a decision on Congessional war powers vis-à-vis the Executive Branch. Tactically,...
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“De-Authorize the War”
Not the most elegant way to put it, but the first statement Bill Richardson made on his hour-long “Meet the Press” interview this morning reiterates what he has been saying for some time now: Stop diddling with the funding for our disaster in Iraq and take steps toward rescinding Congressional authorization of it. Now if the other Democratic Presidential candidates will join him (Clinton and Obama already have), maybe Reid and Pelosi will take time out from their high-wire...
Bush’s Tales Out of School
This President leaves no cliché behind. Yesterday he revived the one about the kid who kills his parents and asks for sympathy because he’s an orphan. At one of the few commencement venues that can’t turn him down, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the Commander-in-Chief inspired graduates by declassifying intelligence to show that in 2005 Osama bin Laden was setting up units in Iraq to plan terrorist attacks here. Scary, Mr. President, but do you think that these young...
All-Thumbs White House
As soon as Democrats took over Congress, it became clear that, as political as this Administration has been, Bush, Cheney and Rove have no aptitude for the process. For six years, with a rubber-stamp Republican Congress, there was no need for the give-and-take, negotiating, compromises and tradeoffs normally involved in governing. Now, every day brings new evidence that these people just don’t know how to do it. Start with the twisting in the wind of Alberto Gonzales. As the...
Grimm Brothers: Thompson and Gonzales
If you like fairy tales, just look at the morning papers. Two Republicans, Fred Thompson and Arturo Gonzales, are updating the Grimm Brothers. Uncle Fred is recycling the old one from the master storyteller of your parents’ time, Ronald Reagan, about the magic tax cuts, the trickle-down and the beanstalk that grows to the sky. The tooth fairy is back in Uncle Arturo’s tale of how, while we are all tucked safely in bed, he and his elves who...
Time for Older, Wiser Heads
The schoolyard fight over war funding has gone on long enough. It’s time for the sound-biting between the White House and Congress to stop. In the last two days, older, wiser voices are beginning to be heard. Yesterday Sen. Carl Levin, 72, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said “We are not going to cut off the funding, period,” but added that Democrats will continue to press the President to “pressure Iraqi leaders to negotiate a settlement.” In today’s...
“What, Me Worry?”
On their way to Easter vacation, George Bush and Karl Rove are doing a little evading of the law just to keep their hands in. Unable to get Senate approval, the White House has used a recess appointment to make Sam Fox the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. Mr. Fox’s qualification as a diplomat is based on his $50,000 contribution to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which produced ads smearing John Kerry’s war record in 2004. Meanwhile, a new poll...
Words to Debate Iraq By
This morning evokes thoughts of our 34th President, Dwight David Eisenhower. He died on this day, March 28, 1969, thirty-eight years ago. Not much of an anniversary, but in this time of Bush, Cheney, Rove and Gonzales, the man everybody called Ike is more and more a reminder of a lost American decency. I met the general-turned-politician one night in 1964 when he invited half a dozen editors to dinner in Gettysburg, Pa. He had had a bad day,...
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