From today’s WAPO:
Even as their confrontation with President Bush over Iraq escalates, emboldened congressional Democrats are challenging the White House on a range of issues — such as unionization of airport security workers and the loosening of presidential secrecy orders — with even more dramatic showdowns coming soon.
For his part, Bush, who also finds himself under assault for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, the conduct of the Iraq war and alleged abuses in government surveillance by the FBI, is holding firm. Though he has vetoed only one piece of legislation since taking office, he has vowed to veto 16 bills that have passed either the House or the Senate in the three months since Democrats took control of Congress.
Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act.
“I suppose there’s always a risk of going too far,” said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), “but the risk of not going is far greater.”
The money quote from this article comes towards the end with old double standards Jack Kingston (R-GA):
“It’s going to be like the government shutdowns” of 1995 and 1996, predicted Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.). “The Democrats’ honeymoon is fixing to end. It’s going to explode like an IED.”
Remember – it was Kingston who said came out against the minimum wage increase. His argument was poor people should just marry and work longer hours. This was a month after he started complaining about Congress having to work a 5-day week.
This shows the hypocrisy of people like Kingston. Back in 1995 and 1996 it was great for the Republicans to investigate everything in the Clinton White House, from Monica to Christmas card lists. But now we have a Congress who wants to investigate lies that have lead us to war, the stripping of our Constitution by the President, torture and many other serious allegations and that is not good. Suddenly a Congress investigating a President is evil, yet the last President was worth over 50 investigations.
As Josh says about Kingston’s little line there:
Maybe he can go try that one out on some of the kids over at Walter Reed.
I wonder if we asked those soldiers, who had to stay in building 18 at Walter Reed, if they thought the conditions there were more or less important than a President getting a blow job, how they would respond? How would the Republicans respond? I know the proper answer on that question, and I am sure most of you do. The problem is the Republicans want to play politics with everything and that includes the treatment of our wounded soldiers.
The Republicans created this high moral ground they want to walk on. They created this atmosphere of heavy oversight of the administrative branch during the last President’s time in office. They created the legal mess that is plaguing Washington today by rubber stamping a rogue President and all of that lead to their spanking last November. If they want a prayer of retaking either hall of Congress then perhaps they should embrace the Democrats and work with them on this. Bush don’t care one bit about throwing people under the bus for his failures, so why should the Republicans continue to protect him? He would throw the Republicans to the wolves in a second.