Sidney Blumenthal (Guardian Utd): Bush's war comes home

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Thursday May 26

Bush's war comes home
His dream of dominating every government institution in tatters, the US president is already plotting his revenge
By Sidney Blumenthal

President Bush's drive for absolute power has momentarily stalled. In a single coup, he planned to take over all the institutions of government. By crushing the traditions of the Senate he would pack the courts, especially the supreme court, with lockstep ideologues. Sheer force would prevail. But just as his blitzkrieg reached the outskirts of his objective, he was struck by a mutiny. Within the span of 24 hours he lost control not only of the Senate but temporarily of the House of Representatives, which was supposed to be regimented by unquestioned loyalty. Now he prepares to launch a counterattack - against the dissident elements of his own party.

Bush's wonder weapon for total victory was a device called the "nuclear option". Once it was triggered, it would obliterate a 200-year-old tradition of the Senate. The threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate of his appointments to the federal bench would set the doomsday sequence in motion. The Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist of Tennessee, would call for a change in the rule, and a simple majority would vote to abolish the filibuster. Bush's nominees would sail through.

Unlike the House, the Senate was constructed by the constitutional framers as an unrepresentative body, with each state, regardless of population, allotted two senators. Currently, the Republicans have 55 senators who represent only 45% of the country. The Senate creates its own rules, and the filibuster can only be stopped by a super-majority of 60 votes. Historically, it was used by southern senators to block civil rights legislation. In the first two years of the Clinton presidency, the Republicans deployed 48 filibusters, more than in the entire previous history of the Senate, to make the new Democratic chief executive appear feckless. The strategy was instrumental in the Republican capture of the Congress in 1994. By depriving the Democrats of the filibuster, Bush intended to transform the Senate into his rubber stamp.

For many senators the fate of the filibuster was only superficially about an arcane rule change. And shameless hypocrisy was the least of the problem. (Frist, like most Republicans in favour of the nuclear option, had enthusiastically filibustered against Clinton's court nominees, 65 of which were blocked from 1995-2000.) If Bush succeeded he would have effectively removed the Senate's "advice and consent" on executive appointments, drastically reducing its power.

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Bush has had 5+ years of revenge; it's our turn now.

Why isn't this being thrown "up and down" in their lying faces!

is a most heinous act IMHO: watching Congressmen figuratively jump through their collective assholes like lemming rushing to sea is a most disturbing and disgusting sight.

The Vice-president said his aim was to bring back the power that the President has lost over the years. I do not know where I would find that any more but I will hunt for it on Google. I think you would need one of the super places that looks for that stuff. I always thought it was to be equal power in three places and have always felt we were safer if both Houses of Congress were not of one party.

The filibuster has been in effect since Washington was President. The President (speaking abstractly) has lost no power to be restored.

Those who say otherwise are either liars or fools and I don't think Cheney is a fool.