Either they are with us or they are against us: 2007 version

Is there a reason why, after issuing contempt orders to those refusing to testify in the Congressional inquiries, Patrick Leahy can’t take the PR initiative with something like this?

Our freedom always depends on the Executive branch being willing to support the Constitution. The Executive branch controls the military, the Justice Department, the Secret Service and the FBI. It is the duty of Congress under the Constitution to investigate alleged wrongdoing in the Executive branch. When George Bush and Dick Cheney refuse to cooperate and launch absurd claims of “executive privilege” for everything ever said or done by a member of the White House staff, they are undermining the Constitution, plain and simple. That is what’s at stake here. The ball is in the President’s court. He either supports the Constitution or he doesn’t. So far, he does not.

Bush and Cheney are spoiling for a confrontation because it shores up their dwindling base of support. Generally with an assist from the press, they turn it into showing “toughness,” “resoluteness,” “standing firm” – or fill in the blank with another Vance Packard-inspired phallic allusion that works like a charm with the gullible Republican base. The fact is that Congress cannot do anything to force the President to cooperate except start impeachment proceedings. The White House Stalinists of this era understand that the divisions commanded by the Capitol Sargeant-at-Arms is no match for the forces under White House orders. But Congressional Democrats can make the President pay a political price if it is willing to say what is really happening. Some portion of that recalcitrant group has some inkling that maybe the Constitution is important. The country and the world are well served by every percentage point of approval stripped from this Republican administration.