US congressional democrats grow a backbone

[piranha]

harry reid blasts republican senate for not holding the administration accountable.

senate forced into closed session.

frist called it a "slap in the face", an affront to america, and stated that he can never trust reid again. *boggle*. use hyperbole much? can't wait for you to retire.

Comments

[king-tirian.livejournal.com]

$my_opinion = $your_opinion;
$my_opinion =~ s/retire/go to jail for insider trading/;

[velochicdunord.livejournal.com]

Why did this not occur sooner?

There are still things I don't understand about the how the US system works.

Within a parliamentary democracy, the Official Opposition would have bee ripping into this in greatly more colourful language from the very beginning.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Fundamenally, it's because we don't have a Queen.

No, I'm serious.

In most democracies around the world, you've got a "Head of State" and a "Head of Government". The "Head of Government" is usually a Prime Minister or some title such as that. The Head of State is a hereditary monarch in Great Britain and the Commonwealth, is an elected President with only ceremonial duties in Israel, and so forth.

We don't have that. TECHNICALLY, our President is a Head of Government, and our Head of State is the Constitution of the United States. But people can't get emotionally behind a document that way, so our President is both a Head of State and a Head of Government.

This is a fundamentally bad situation.

Our President represents and embodies the country in the way that the Queen does for Great Britian. Even though he's not supposed to. So attacking the President, or the President's party is seen as "disloyal" and "unpatriotic."

Note that this never prevented the Republicans from doing so under Bill Clinton -- but their attacks were personal attacks based on the idea that Bill Clinton was morally unfit to be an avatar of patriotism.

[prairierabbit.livejournal.com]

I agree.

I know Dick Durbin has been pushing for action for awhile now, but many Democrats weren't ready to support that. Seems like now's the time...

[novazembla.livejournal.com]

He said he was appalled by the lack of respect for Senate tradition.

Apparently judicial filibuster is not a Senate tradition.

@%<

[huashan.livejournal.com]

I really hope we don't have to wait until that ass retires. I'd love to see Delay start a domino effect of indictment, conviction and imprisonment that takes Frist, and all of the rest of the head of this corrupt government away.