Does the Democrat leadership think of fallout? Or are they only interested in getting Bush? - Updated


Actions will come home to roost
You know, as I watch the Democrats slowly, deliberately undermine the Presidency, I can see where this one ends.

You can not have 535 additional people conducting their own foreign policy.

You can not have a military chain of command that ends in a committee.

The repercussions for the next Democrat President are going to be amazingly good entertainment. Think about the precedents the Democrat leadership is setting.

Imagine for a moment that the junior Senator from New York was actually elected President. Do you think she would tolerate Republicans pulling the same stunts?

FDR and Harry Truman would have called it treason during WWII.

The way to do this is NOT to set up a separate diplomatic effort. If you really don't like what the President is doing, then impeach him.

But when the Democrats make a fuss about military funding, but pack twenty billion dollars of spam into the bill, I can't take them seriously. They aren't "making a stand," they are posing for pictures and playing politics by using both ends against the middle.

My problem is not with opposing Bush, but with undermining the Constitution to do it.

UPDATE - I suspected this, but hadn't had time to research it yet.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may well have committed a felony in traveling to Damascus this week, against the wishes of the president, to communicate on foreign-policy issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad. The administration isn't going to want to touch this political hot potato, nor should it become a partisan issue. Maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, whose aggressive prosecution of Lewis Libby establishes his independence from White House influence, should be called back.

The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, "without authority of the United States," to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States." Some background on this statute helps to understand why Ms. Pelosi may be in serious trouble.

Makes sense really, the Constitution makes it clear that it is the President who negotiates treaties and appoints ambassadors in Article 2, Section 2.

The interesting question is if the President can afford to ignore the Nancy Pelosi's actions. Politics or no, it strikes to the heart of Presidential power.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Fri - April 6, 2007 at 05:16 AM  Tag


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