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Well, BushCo. and his little helpers will never change. As you know, Bush is trying to make an agreement with the Maliki government to keep our troops and the Black Water’s of Paul Bremerland active in Iraq after the 2002 UN resolution ends in December. Separation of Powers and all that good jazz means little to Cheney or Bush who only care about executive power so they’re trying to forge a SOFA agreement without the consent of Congress. Notice at the end of the clip he calls it a “standard SOFA.” There is nothing “standard about the Iraq war, “my friends.”
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This is what has happened in the last 7 years: the Republicans in Congress turned it into a rubber stamp of the White House, completely giving up exercising its powers, ceasing to be any kind of check on the presidency, refusing to do any oversight, because the president happened to be of the same party. This is unprecedented in American history; until now, Congress, whoever was in the majority, always checked the powers of the president of whatever party. This is today’s GOP in a nutshell: party above everything- even the historic privileges and prerogatives of Congress, especially the Senate. Anybody who has read Robert Caro’s “Master of the Senate” knows how throughout its history, that house has jealously guarded its powers and privileges against all presidents of whatever party. That is, until now, when the GOP is so cravenly beholden to the White House that it will trash every tradition and give away every privilege and prerogative and make itself a rubber stamp of the president. This is unprecedented in history. Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Henry Cabot Lodge, William Borah, Carl Hayden and Richard Russell should all rise out of their graves and strangle Graham and every other GOPer for what they have done to Congress.