The president has ordered his Attorney General to ignore contempt charges against administration officials. Heinous, dictatorial behavior, vindicates the Anti-Federalist papers, yadda yadda. The US Attorney for DC remains a loyal Bushie, meaning that the decree just puts a finer point on something we already knew. Referring contempt cases to a department run by the slavishly loyal Gonzales were and remain a pointless waste of time.
With every other route shut, Congress has no other choice but to use inherent contempt proceedings to enforce its subpoenas. Frankly it pleases me that the president has forced Congress’s hand. Dems can either do the right thing, or they could fold up their chairs and go home. Ocf course, with Democrats it can go either way.
***
One other point: it will be fun to see “credible” conservatives like Captain Ed defend this. Will they jump the Hinderaker gap and decide that every trial involving a loyal Bushie must be automatically, a priori, politically-motivated and invalid? Unless they want to admit that their adored leader is a crackpot tyrant I don’t see much other choice.
***Update***
More from Lederman. As I said, there was no reason before this to think that a Bush official would pursue contempt charges against his own government. A case from the Reagan era establishes that they have an arguable basis for this, and the idea that Gonzo’s staff would challenge that precedent is beyond laughable.
Now the Dems can either go nuclear (inherent contempt would be nice) or make some noise and fold up their chairs. Wish I could say that I didn’t expect the latter.
***Update 2***
This helpful video explains the point of today’s announcement.