If the Dems win........

Bush White House: "A Cataclysmic Fight to the Death"
by BriVT [Subscribe]
Mon Oct 30, 2006 at 11:01:32 AM PST

One guess who a GOP strategist was talking about fighting in that title. Osama Bin Laden? Bwahaha! No. The "insurgents" in Iraq? More plausible, but still no.

No, that unnamed staffer was talking about having a "cataclysmic fight to the death" with none other than the Congress of the United States.

If the Democrats take over and try to investigate the White House, that is. More below ...

The quote comes from a Time Magazine story about the state of the Bush Presidency. After quite a bit about his "loneliness" and how GOP candidates suddenly remember a hair appointment when Bush comes to town, the article gets to the real meat of the story, as far as I'm concerned.

If lame-duck Presidents are to achieve anything, they often have to look for ways to go around Congress, especially when it is in the hands of the other party. Clinton used Executive Orders and his bully pulpit to encourage school uniforms, impose ergonomic rules on employers and prevent mining, logging and development on 60 million acres of public land. White House press secretary Tony Snow says Bush may take the same bypass around Capitol Hill. "He told all of us, 'Put on your track shoes. We're going to run to the finish,'" Snow said. "He's going to be aggressive on a lot of fronts. He's been calling all his Cabinet secretaries and telling them, 'You tell me administratively everything you can do between now and the end of the presidency. I want to see your to-do list and how you expect to do it.' We're going to try to be as ambitious and bold as we can possibly be."

In fact, when it comes to deploying its Executive power, which is dear to Bush's understanding of the presidency, the President's team has been planning for what one strategist describes as "a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."
Um ... wow. That is stunning in its breathtaking arrogance and destructiveness. "Every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation." Well, don't that just sum it all up right there.

I could go on and on about how wrong that is, how un-American, how against the basic framework laid down by the Founding Fathers ... but I don't want to go on too long here ... you guys can take care of that in comments.

But what I do want to say is this: November 7th may be a very big day on the political calendar, but you have just been served notice. If you didn't know it before, you should know it now. The fight does not end on November 7th, it begins in earnest on that day.

This fight will have to be waged across multiple fronts at all times. From efforts like Major Danby's FINGER project to all the liberal blogs to every Democratic politician, all of us will be needed to fight this White House's unprecedented power grab. The Bush White House has laid down the marker: no compromise, no discussion. They don't want to hear from Congress, and the fact that the country will have voted against them means nothing to them. They are not interested in the will of the people; they are interested in the triumph of the will of George W. Bush.

So, work hard through Election Day (and for god's sake get Joe Lieberman out of there!), take a day or two off, and then get ready for the real work of taking this country back.

You've been warned.

First, this means, despite the bravado, Bush is preparing for war with the Congress. A Democratic Congress.

If the Bush Administration tries this, not only will they lose the American people, within six months, no matter what Nancy Pelosi says today, there will be a consitutional crisis leading to impeachment.

Bush is unpopular now. If the Republicans are turfed out like the pessimists think, forget the optimists, this is going to hurt him a lot more than Congress.

But if, let's say 40 seats change hands and the Senate is 50-50, why does Bush think he can ignore Congress? The last two Congresses gave him leeway. This one is likely not to. Does Bush think he's gonna offer up Social Security theft and the unlimited war in Iraq without opposition?

He may think that, but right now he's just above Nixon numbers, a refusal to deal with Congress would lead to a sharp decline.

Bush talks tough, he loves to talk tough, but his right wing lackies will not be able to protect him. If the House changes hands, the Dems get the floor and Bush is on 24/7 defense. And they haven't done defense all that well.

The tenor of DC will have changed. The Vichy Dems will have been proven wrong and Dean proven right. Going after Bush will not have the penalties it did in the past. The people who abandoned the GOP won't be coming back after the election.

posted by Steve @ 5:36:00 PM