Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to allow ourselves to contemplate a non-Republican dominated Congress. It was called "balance of power" in my American History class, and in so far as we can recall, it is only a historical concept – this last six years has been such an eternity. While there are plenty of real-time issues on the table that have to do with foreign policy, and no small number of domestic issues to clean up, I would personally like to see Congress take on restoring the kind of "balance of power" that should transcend which party is in the majority.
George Bush and Dick Cheney have been unswerving in their attempt to centralize our government’s power in the Executive Branch, seeing the Congress and Judiciary as advisors or something like that. They’ve purloined a number of powers through extending the war powers of the President. They’ve made a mockery of the Constitution with "Signing Statements" – something none of us have ever heard of before. I don’t understand anything about the legality of such things, but they have to be curtailed. To me, it’s the first order of business.
The second order of business is to initiate inquiries into almost everything that has gone on in the last six years – the prewar intelligence, the conduct of the war, the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions, the "faith based initiatives," the N.S.A. domestic spying, the Homeland Security Program, the access of Lobbyists to Congressmen – need I go on?
Congress is going to have to reconstitute itself as a viable part of the American government first, then take on the business of trying to untangle the mess that’s been created in the Reign of George II. So, maybe, just maybe, it’s time to allow ourselves to contemplate a non-Republican dominated Congress. And it’s much more important for that Congress to re-establish itself as an independent, functioning part of our government – capable of oversight – than for it to simply deal with the issues of the moment…
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