A Revolution Of One

President or Decider?
When I saw this post on Huffington Post by Congressman John Conyers, Jr., I realized that there was at least one exception to my do nothing Democrats in congress comment a couple posts ago. Actually there are several. The congressman and a few colleagues are taking President Bush to court over yet another example blatant disregard for the constitution, law and our system of checks and balances. It's explained on HuffPo, but briefly the recent Republican budget bill, though it passed both houses of congress, portions of the House and Senate versions of the bill are not in agreement. In case you missed that episode of School House Rock, apparently the President and Congressional Republicans did, by law both versions of the bill must be the same in order for the bill to pass. But the Republican congress, anxious to make cuts in many essential programs, simply certified the versions of the bill as the same. President Bush was warned that the bills did not match, yet he signed it into law anyway.

I guess when you are The Decider, you don't have to worry about little things like the law and the constitution. You can approve spying on US citizens without a warrant no matter what the law says. You can declassify information on the fly when it suits your purposes to justify a war, even when that information is incorrect. You can torture prisoners of war and not worry about the Geneva convention or any messy stuff like that.

When I read some of the comments under that post, I realized that there are several congresspersons who don't deserve the "do nothing" remark I made recently. Those joining in Congressman Conyer's suit don't deserve it. Also Congressman John Murtha for speaking out against the war. And, of course, Senator Feingold for his resolution to censure the president. I'm sure there are others, but those are the major ones that come immediately to mind. Actually Congressman Conyers was one of the first voices to talk about impeachment, long before the president's poll numbers dipped. We must give credit where it is due. I think what this country needs is not a decider, but a president whose decisons follow the constitution and the law.