Bush continues to act as though he has carte blanche to dictate laws — and Congress, even ostensibly with a Democratic majority, continues to accept that. In some ways, they seem even less effective of an opposition than when they were in the minority.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday said he would oppose another temporary extension of a law empowering U.S. spy agencies to track communications of terrorism suspects without a court order and pressed Congress for a long-term fix.
[…] “It’s time for Congress to ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted,” Bush told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “It is time for Congress to pass a law that provides a long-term foundation to protect our country and they must do so immediately.”
[…] “The time for debate is over,” Bush said. “I will not accept any temporary extension.”
Assuming that the House Democrats don’t actually want to pass the retroactive immunity to telcos or allow the Administration all the wiretapping powers they want, they have two choices. They can pass a temporary extension, again, to allow more debate. Or they can just decline to accept those provisions in the Senate bill as the matter goes to conference committee.
Bush remains able, somehow, to frame the debate as to it all being him making the decisions, and Congress being obstructionist. He doesn’t “accept” whatever he doesn’t like, and Congress seems willing to simply let him do so, for fear of being seen as “weak on terror”. They are, essentially, acting out of fear — which means, ironically, that the terrorists (all of them) have won, doesn’t it?
Yeppers.
But it is the only way that the GOP can govern. They need people wetting their pants and looking for daddy to save them. The need the fear so that the big lei and be told over and over again and the press will keep repeating and pushing the propaganda and more fear, more lies and so on.
Reid had a choice between two versions of the FISA bill and he chose to go with the one that granted Retroactive Immunity over the one that didn’t.
The House version does not, so we will see if Palosi will roll over and piddle in the air like she has every other time George II has stamped his tiny feet and the Senate version is the one that comes out of Committee.
So, along with George II bypassing the Senate and making treaties with Iraq for us to stay in our comfy perminate bases forever, the Telecoms will not be sued for violating the FISA laws from before 9/11 when George II started trashing the Constitution.
The GOP has finally achived it’s goal of turning the U.S into a Third World Dictatorship, how likely is it they will turn over this power…not very.
Well, it appears that conservative Dems in the House scuttled extending the existing bill, which evidently means that the House will probably just accept the Senate bill, since it isn’t in session Thursday-Friday, and that would let the old extension lapse …
WTF? The House just rolls over and accepts this because they want to go home for the weekend? Or because, since the White House and GOP had declared a game of chicken with them, they have to blink first?
I’ve never been impressed by Reid or Pellosi, but at least I thought the biggest reason to fear them is because they were likely to do something too radical, not because they’d cave like newspaper in the rain.
Yeah, because you guys are likely to let *that* happen.
That’s kind of the whole point of the veto power given the Executive by the Constitution: That Congress must pass legislation acceptable to the Branch charged by the Constitution with executing it. If the Founders had not desired for the President to demand that legislation be acceptable to him, they’d not have given him that power. Likewise, if Congress wants a piece of legislation strongly enough, it has the power to force such legislation on an Executive. But to do so, those in favour must persuade enough of their colleagues to over-ride a veto.
It has nothing to do with being ‘afraid’ of being perceived as ‘weak on terror’; rather, there are very real disputes within the House (and, for that matter, between the House Democrat majority and the Senate Democrat majority) as to the wisdom and efficacy of this bill. What’s happening here is what’s to be expected when a narrow majority wants something it cannot persuade a broad majority to support. That would seem to suggest that negotiation and compromise would be in order, but Pelosi’s crew isn’t much into that.
Say what you will about one side or the other’s specific poistions in specific policy disputes, but this process is an essential and vital part and parcel with the very foundation of our tripartite system of government: checks and balances.
Clearly there are differences here between the House and Senate Dems on the matter. And you’re correct that veto power is an important part of checks-and-balances.
I guess what I find frustrating is that it seems that even though the GOP is in the minority in Congress, the only bills that seem to get passed are the ones where most if not all of the key points the president “demands” are in place. And that he’s been able to frame it as Congress not getting what he insists upon, getting Congress to seemingly always blink first, rather than it being willing to say, “no, this is what we’re going to pass, so if *you* don’t compromise, on *your* head be it.”
Veto power (and the Senate closure rules) should act as a check, not a mandate, and encourage compromise, not capitulation. Instead, aside from a lot of rhetoric, it doesn’t seem that Bush and the GOP have had to budge an inch. (Which is as much a charge at the Dems as at the president).
It will be interesting to see how today’s developments on this will play out.
Senate *Clouture* rules…
And part of what made the FISA surrender so tragic is that Reid (D-surrender monkey) has backed down any time the GOP has even hinted at a Filibuster, but when a member of his OWN party (Dodd) does the same thing, he forces Dodd to actually Filibuster it.
You have Seven Dems in the Senate (and Lieberman) that are Bush dogs that roll over and wet themselves and give the GOP whatever they want. It is long past time for those seven to be booted out of any committee or position of power until they learn to their lesson and quit being Mr. 29%’s minions.
Actually “cloture.” 🙂
Bah…the Legal Dictionary said it was Clouture and I didn’t check to see that it was the UK english version. ;P
Plus it’s getting to be very entertaining today in Congress. 🙂
I definitely see it differently. I see little or no willingness by the Dems to even attempt to compromise. See S-CHIP, a program Bush proposed to increase funding for, but made it clear he would not agree to fundamentally alter in ways that would damage the market. Seems like there’s some room for compromising there, yet the Dems passed the same bill he vetoed (because it fundamentally altered the program in ways that would damage the market) multiple times, never taking his objections into account or trying to meet him partway. That leads one to think they were more interested in generating negative news stories about Bush than actually getting that program reauthorized.
They did exactly what you said you want there. End result: Nothing except that the media obliged with some set pieces attacking Bush. No children got better health care because of it. Either persuading their colleagues of the wisdom of their position or, where that’s not possible, bowing to the requirements of the Founders that they compromise is not weakness. Refusing to do so for partisan advantage is, however, not exactly furthering the People’s business.
Except that is not completely true.
Yes he increased funding…a tiny amount that did not account for the increases to the costs of Health Care, so that the kids that the current version covered would not be covered under the Bush version.
The Dems proposed a version that would cover all the kids currently covered under the current version, AND cover those that it could not cover because there was not enough money to cover them under the current version.
It had nothing to do with the market, it was all just standard GOP lies, and the GOP got what the really wanted after all, less people insured by the government.
If you think of George II as a 2 year old, it will all make sense to you.
And why compromise with someone when they are wrong?
Or as Grover Norquist said:
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
Sometimes you just have to take the villain at their word when they are monologing….
I’ll bow to the two of you on knowledge of the specifics of the S-CHP fight. My general sense was that the Dems wanted to expand it, the President didn’t (playing the amusing “fiscal responsibility” card), and … yes, in that case, it was a (political) win-win for the Dems, since they either got what they wanted or got to portray Bush as stealing health care from deserving children.