The Marbled Four Branches of American Government
President Bush invoked executive privilege on behalf of aides, so they would not testify before Congress. Congress can declare contempt. The enforcement of the subpoena goes to the Justice Department. And the Justice Department reports to the White House. There-in lies the loop-de-loop thrill ride a 75 year young Congressman named John Conyers, Jr., is about to get on for the duration. Executive Privilege is for the president, not for former aides who chatter and connive amongst themselves. Cue the most expensive lawyers to thrash it out in public.
The latest breaking news brinkmanship is between a stubborn codger of a humiliated president and the mettle of a razor thin majority Democratic Congress. With Ruffles and Flourishes, Congress caved in once already to the lame duck's demands on the Iraq Supplemental. Now the stage is set for a classic summer battle in Washington. Neither branch of government is Paris Hilton popular. Democrats have a better chance of being victors, but the Courts will weigh in. Who picked those judges again? Bush also has a microphone, but may not want to face it after his commutation of his lying and obstructing aide, Scooter Libby.
Surging Democratic opposition plus the right to declare contempt literally and figuratively has given Democrats renewed strength. This is in Bush's privileged executive astro-turfed South Lawn and still has him reaching for the antacids as he simultaneous tries to cast the Iraq surge as a huge hit - Broadway style, not Fallujah I. The Bush legacy is inherently filled with contempt on everything it touches - a reverse Midas effect.
Stay tuned for the summer's hot legal thriller! (Not available in bookstores yet.)
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