GOP Executive Branch Making Criminal Conduct Its Major Object

Once upon a time, and far, far, away and long, long ago ... there was a Constitution that gave the President the duty of enforcing the law.

Sadly, we have presently in power an element much more interested in a presidential role of suborning the laws. There is no pretense in the White House that the truth is respected. Campaigning on the promise that he would not indulge in Nation Building, the cretin in chief has made that a major object of his regime, even to the extent of committing unilateral warmaking to do it. Most recently in ongoing lies, the cretin in chief promised during the congressional campaigns that Rumsfeld would stay . Ooops.

A major lie was committed in engineering war, as the entire executive branch involved itself in convincing the public, and Congress, that WMD's were a threat from Saddam Hussein -which all good intelligence showed it was not. A very Big Lie had to be created and then used against us to make that point. Now the GOP major meme is that the cretin in chief was ill-advised.

It is hardly a surprise that 'the truth' would be a problem for the executive branch in its chosen functions. Its major exercise has been the creation of lies to support criminal activity.

When the legislative branch became Democratic, it became a real problem for the executive branch. The power of subpoena changed into hands with a real interest in the truth. Watching the war criminals dig in reminds me most especially of the Nixon years.

At the time of Watergate, crimes had been committed. The executive branch knew that letting the truth get out would be the end. The Nixon White House made a deal to let Nixon resign, with a pardon to come, to get out from under prosecution for those crimes. A few of the Nixon cabal went to jail, but not nearly enough. Some of them are still in high places, and still trying to make the world safe for their crimes.

We're at the first step in a constitutional crisis with the shrubbery. The presser last night was designed to make a show of cooperation - an exercise which gives cooperation a bad name.

The conditions for 'allowing' aides to testify ensure that any story, no matter how ludicrous, will be accepted instead of a true detailing of the actual grounds for firing U.S. attorneys. Even more important, the grounds for establishing that their loyalty ranked above their oaths of office for the remaining U.S. Attorneys will be protected. There are many instances in which investigations appear to have been interfered with. Lambert's very excellent post yesterday gave a very chilling one in which a North Carolina congressman was protected from justifiable investigation in crimes against this country.

Crimes against the country are not the proper function of the executive branch. They are, however, increasingly the object of this one's functions and the modus operandi of its officials.

As Lambert points out, this is a watershed. Once the obstacles thrown up by the cretin in chief have been trashed, the way is clear for the Democratic Congress to demand the truth from industrial strength liars. If we still have a functional judicial branch despite the liars' best efforts, the subpoenas to come will bring out testimony under oath and the inevitable punishment for crimes.

I am not entirely alone in thinking it will be a far, far better thing that this test comes now. We still have time to straighten out the executive branch, and wipe up after the war criminals. Our standing in the world is probably forever greatly damaged, but at least we can make the three branches of government function passably again.

The die is cast.