Karl Rove to the nation:

I'm better, more important than all of you and completely above the law!



Rove skips congressional inquiry. Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Something has the facts.



Hipparchia of Over The Cliff, Onto The Rocks has a message from Rep. Wexler about Rove, Cheney and Bush and discussing inherent contempt and impeachment.

Thank you Representative Zoe Lofgren

For attempting to hold the Bush administration accountable:

The Bush administration has taken historically unprecedented steps in its assertions of executive privilege and authority. For instance, the Vice President has fought over relatively modest requests to disclose information such as with whom he consulted when setting the Administration's energy policy. The Vice President's office, during a confrontation with the National Archives over executive branch records, even declared itself an entity outside of the executive branch with enhanced powers to resist the public's right to know about its actions.

These assertions of executive privilege have wide-ranging implications for both Congress' day-to-day oversight of the Bush administration and for efforts to hold the President and Vice President accountable.

That is why I introduced the Executive Branch Prosecutions Act. This legislation would suspend the statute of limitations for crimes committed while the president and vice president hold office. Federal law currently suspends the statute of limitations for crimes related to national security. That suspension should extend to any crime committed by the President or Vice President while in office.

It won't go anywhere but it doesn't matter. We need to keep on chipping away at the facade of this administration with such acts; soon there will be cracks enough to expose all the wrong doing that has taken place for the last two terms.

Then we need to hold people accountable. We need trials and jail time. We need to see cause and effect. We need to see justice.

What a constitutional crisis

Looks like. Bush declares executive privilege makes him and all those connected to him above the law. Mustang Bobby at Bark Bark Woof Woof explains:

A couple of thoughts come to mind. First, I'm trying to imagine the thermonuclear reaction this would have caused among the Republicans and the wingnutosphere if President Clinton -- or any Democratic president, for that matter -- had tried to assert this level of executive privilege. Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House would have been littered with the bloody remnants of exploded heads of Republicans and all the punditry who would proclaim that Mr. Clinton is a rogue and a charlatan and all sorts of other Victorian terms that they dredged up from the Newt Gingrich list of naughty words.

The second thought is that this, along with the Iraq war funding, will be the true test of the Democrats in the Senate and the Congress. If they don't stand up and fight back with all the forces they can muster and make every attempt to win this battle, then there is little hope for them. All of the energy that they put in to winning the election in 2006 and all of the effort they're putting in to winning back the White House and a larger majority in the House and Senate won't mean anything.

It's clear that Mr. Bush and his administration are calling out the Democrats -- and anyone else who believes in the balance of power -- to defend the role of Congress and its equal place in our nation. If they don't rise to the challenge, we might as well just give up now and let the comfortable numbness of dictatorship and one-party rule lull us gently to our doom because we don't deserve to have our republic any longer.

Mustang Bobby then links to Greenwald:

Yes, it is true that, as various Democratic statements are claiming, this theory poses a constitutional crisis since, yet again, the President declares the other two branches of government impotent and himself omnipotent. But we have had such a crisis for the last five years. We have just chosen to ignore it, to acquiesce to it, to allow it to fester.

There is no magic force that is going to descend from the sky and strike with lighting at George Bush and Dick Cheney for so flagrantly subverting our constitutional order. The Founders created various checks for confronting tyrannical abuses of power, but they have to be activated by political will and the courage to confront it. That has been lacking. Hence, they have seized omnipotent powers with impunity.

At this point, the blame rests not with the Bush administration. They have long made clear what they believe and, especially, what they are. They have been rubbing in our faces for several years the fact that they believe they can ignore the law and do what they want because nobody is willing to do anything about it. Thus far, they have been right, and the blame rests with those who have acquiesced to it.

It has been six months since the Democrats took over Congress. Yes, they have commenced some investigations and highlighted some wrongdoing. But that is but the first step, not the ultimate step, which we desperately need. Where are the real confrontations needed to vindicate the rule of law and restore constitutional order? No reasonable person can dispute that in the absence of genuine compulsion (and perhaps even then), the administration will continue to treat "the law" as something optional, and their power as absolute. Their wrongdoing is extreme, and only equally extreme corrective measures will suffice.

It is up to the Democratic Congress to win or lose this fight. It is one that we cannot afford to lose.

Like the undead zombies

Here's proof that if you don't stake them through the heart, they keep on coming back to life:

A few months ago, Seymour Hersh reported that a White House official and Iran Contra alum, Elliot Abrams, had recently led a "lessons learned" discussion about Iran Contra:

Iran-Contra was the subject of an informal “lessons learned” discussion two years ago among veterans of the scandal. Abrams led the discussion. One conclusion was that even though the program was eventually exposed, it had been possible to execute it without telling Congress. As to what the experience taught them, in terms of future covert operations, the participants found: “One, you can’t trust our friends. Two, the C.I.A. has got to be totally out of it. Three, you can’t trust the uniformed military, and four, it’s got to be run out of the Vice-President’s office”—a reference to Cheney’s role, the former senior intelligence official said.

Today the Washington Post reports that the White House may have taken that lesson to heart. It has determined, the Post reports, that in legal disputes between the Congress and the White House over executive privilege, game over, because the White House has decided no US attorney can uphold a contempt of Congress decree:

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

Anything that the boyking touches

Is covered under executive privilege:

In a letter to the RNC, Emmet Flood, a special counsel to President Bush, “today again raised the possibility of an executive-privilege claim on e-mails and other documents from private e-mail accounts used by senior White House officials” but controlled by the RNC. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) called the request “extreme and unnecessary” and said it was “a clear attempt, on the Administration’s part, to delay this process and keep the wheels of Justice turning slowly.”

I don't think it works that way, Georgie. Hand over those emails and back away slowly....

Nobody can tell the boyking what to do!

At least, Tony Snow and those who haven't read the Constitution or paid attention in their high school U.S. Government class think so:

Tony Snow: [Congress] does not have constitutional oversight responsibility over the White House.

Shakespeare's Sister: Remember the three equal branches of government?

I believe Georgie did not get a passing grade in that class: