Pony Blow, Constitutional Scholar
Read the following press conference exchange with White House spokesman and former Fox Anchor Tony Snow ( who has a gigantic head) on why he won’t answer questions about the House Page scandal. What can anyone say in the circumstances but aaaargh?
This takes irony round the corner and beats it to a bloody pulp with a lump-hammer.
[…]
Q Well, what about the question about whether or not the president thinks that this issue has been handled properly?
MR. SNOW: Again, we’re not getting into telling the House how to do its business. The most important thing to do right now, from our standpoint, is to talk about the important issues. And that’s what the president’s doing.
Q Well, the president’s — I mean, he’s the leader of the Republican Party —
MR. SNOW: But the president, as you — I believe you were there for the briefing on separate but coequal branches of government. And the president understands that — well, that’s — it was sixth grade. Maybe you skipped that day.
Q No —
(Scattered laughter.)
MR. SNOW: (Chuckles.) But in any event, you know, it’s when they did the — how laws are made and all that kind of stuff.
So it’s ‘Separate but co-equal’, now? The Bush administration must’ve been off sick that day in 6th grade too because that’s not what they’ve been saying so far. Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books, June this year:
During the presidency of George W. Bush, the White House has made an unprecedented reach for power. It has systematically attempted to defy, control, or threaten the institutions that could challenge it: Congress, the courts, and the press. It has attempted to upset the balance of power among the three branches of government provided for in the Constitution; but its most aggressive and consistent assaults have been against the legislative branch: Bush has time and again said that he feels free to carry out a law as he sees fit, not as Congress wrote it. Through secrecy and contemptuous treatment of Congress, the Bush White House has made the executive branch less accountable than at any time in modern American history. And because of the complaisance of Congress, it has largely succeeded in its efforts.
This power grab has received little attention because it has been carried out largely in obscurity. The press took little notice until Bush, on January 5 of this year, after signing a bill containing the McCain amendment, which placed prohibitions on torture, quietly filed a separate pronouncement, a “signing statement,” that he would interpret the bill as he wished. In fact Bush had been issuing such signing statements since the outset of his administration. The Constitution distinguishes between the power of the Congress and that of the president by stating that Congress shall “make all laws” and the president shall “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Bush claims the power to execute the laws as he interprets them, ignoring congressional intent.
Read more: US Constitution, White House, Congressional Child Sex Scandal, Foleygate, Bush Power Grab, Hypocrisy
