Premier Nikita Cheney and the GOP Politburo

Every so often I fall into an introspective funk, where my natural tendency for trying to understand other people without being judgemental does battle with my loathing for everything the Bush/Cheney/GOP power structure stands for.

I've ranted and raved, pissed and moaned, gnashed my teeth and beat my breast for a long time now, enraged over what I see as the dismantling of our Constitutional government exemplified by an unconscionable Executive branch power grab abetted by a compliant Congress.

I actually spend time though, wondering if I'm off-base, being too harsh with my criticism, and just not seeing things correctly. Well, I needn't bother any more.

Read the Think Progress article, here.

As expected Senator Leahy is losing patience with the White House refusal to hand over documents, and things are slooowwwly coming to a head. Another 15 months maybe. But that's not what has upped my dander. It is this:

Leahy said that the administration’s stonewalling amounted to “contempt of the valid order of the Congress,” and pointed out that these subpoenas were passed by broad bipartisan votes. In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee in the conservative-led 109th Congress, chaired by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) also attempted to ask questions about the program’s legal justifications. But Vice President Cheney personally barred him from issuing subpoenas:

In fact, we were about to issue subpoenas then and one of the senators came to our meeting and said that the vice president had met with the Republican senators and told them they were not allowed to issue subpoenas.

In the 109th Congress, when the Senate Judiciary Committee was led by Arlen Specter, they intended to issue subpoenas to get information about the NSA's citizen snooping program, Cheney BARRED them, told them they couldn't, and so they didn't.

DAMMIT ANYWAY! For one thing, no officer of the Executive branch has the right to tell anyone in the Legislative branch what they can and cannot do. That's what the separation of powers is all about! For another thing, why did those cheesy spineless bastards let him get away with it? Is Republican party discipline is so strong that they are willing to destroy our democracy rather than risk offending Bush and Cheney? Apparently so.

Not one of them exhibited the courage to place duty to our country over party loyalty. If any of those senators had any ethics, any integrity at all, they would have issued subpoenas and articles of impeachment before Cheney's ass had hit the exit.

But no. To a man, they treated the oaths they took at their swearing-in ceremonies as nothing more than formalities to be gotten out of the way so they could begin partying with their campaign donors.

Screw 'em all. They're lower than dirt.