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the bush people have argued since december 05 that the church act was an "unconstitutional aborgation of executive power" and so felt free to ignore it. the other argument they have made is that the wiretaps were implicitly authorized by the use of force legislation...my brain does not allow me to access which authorization they could be referring to...at any rate, of the two rationales, the first is the more problematic---i am not sure that any conception of executive power leads to the use of signing orders as a device to decide which laws are binding and which are not. but that appears to be what the bush people have done.
they are not going to comply fully.
i do not see that congress as being able to put aside party allegiances enough to act as the legislative branch in a conflict with the executive over the way in which the separation and balance between the branches is defined.
so i suspect that no matter what happened, the bush people will be able to continue with that kind of noxious, hobbled impunity that has characterized their slo-mo fadeout since november 06.
it'd be nice to see them hoisted by their own petards on this issue *because* it has the potential to unify congress--but like i said, i am not sure that it'll happen.
the system is not working.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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