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ace--i really do not understand the point of your entire line of argument.
if all you're trying to show is that the democrats in congress fell down--repeatedly--in the face of an administration which they assumed (apparently) to be operating in good faith until around 2006, then there's no argument. there really isn't. so what's your point?
but what you seem to want to erase is the fact that the republicans controlled both houses AND the administration was operating in a clandestine fashion (signing orders, for example) EVEN IN THAT CONTEXT--and the source for this trajectory was the unitary theory of the executive--cheney/addington.
since 2006, there has been a certain amount of recalibration of power, but even so (a) the bush administration is still is power and the game ain't over yet, and (b) the numbers in congress are tight enough and republican "party discipline" only recently having imploded to some extent, any meaningful, serious investigation is difficult to mount.
there is no argument about any of this---you keep going back to this "well, congress did x.." thing----it really makes no sense---you seem to be fighting an imaginary battle.
the problem that i keep pointing out is that the existing system enables actions like those of the administration, and that is *in itself* a problem of the structure of the system. i've laid out a couple of historical frames which i think explain why these particular people have exploited these system weaknesses for their own purposes--but they *are* weaknesses. changing them--getting rid of them--requires a redesign of at least some basic features of the system itself---and as i keep saying, in a **different** type of constitutional system, this would already *be* a constitutional crisis--note the tense of the verb ace--it's in the subjunctive.
i think that in this particular situation, the amorphousness/flexibility of the american system functions to erase structural problems. you might confuse this with stability--or you might argue that it enables a form of denial. i am agnostic on this at the moment.
my point is that the seam that the neo-cons have been working, which enables the de facto formation of a bizarre type of executive branch-as-collective-dictatorship for a period of 4 years *is* a problem--and it is a problem raised by these particular people, but is not specific to them. so while the situation is a matter of fact, and involves the right, the preconditions are not specific to the republicans--the bush people did not invent this. just to be clear.
it's curious, though, that in many ways the administration seemed to want to disable the functioning of government (remember fema?) while in others they want an executive which operates with NO accountability (signing orders)...
strange business.
shame you're so obsessed with this non-point you've been making for a *long* time that you can't see this as problematic.
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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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