disturbing the comfortable

The current D.C. flap is about the assertion that Cheney's office is not part of the Executive Branch so he doesn't have to follow the rules...Well, one of the flaps, at least. But it is a big one, because it's about power not being shared among the branches of government. It's part of the on-going renovation of our traditional form of government that the neo-cons have engineered. It's clearly about constitutional issues, just as much as Nixon's fight with Congress was about the separation of powers.

Back in Nixon's day, Congress was willing to get into it, fight it out, with Nixon. These days, I'm not sure that Congress is willing to go that far. Congress appears to be much more concerned with the image of being tough on terror than with saving our form of government. That's why torture is still used; why we're still involved in one of the stupidist wars in America's long history of stupid wars; and why the attorney general's office has been operating as the office of political commisars.

It's been pointed out there's already been a coup. The changes in government brought about by the Bush-Cheney administration have effectively gutted the old Constitutional arrangement of government: a new system is in effect, one where the Executive Branch doesn't answer to anyone. The more Congress stumbles around and nothing really changes, the more I agree.

Well, we had the 2nd longest running government in the world. Guess that was good enough.