The "I" word Returns

In his appearance on "Face The Nation" this morning, Jack Murtha responded to Bob Schieffer's suggestion that congress has no choice but to cave in to Bush on war funding with a typically blunt assessment. He mentioned the four ways that an obdurate president can be influenced, the last two of which are funding and impeachment.

"Surely you don't mean that impeachment is on the table?" Shieffer replied--to which Murtha replied (in effect) "I'm just sayin'...."

You go, Jack. I don't believe it was an offhand comment. I think the democratic leadership in Congress has finally realized the extent to which both time and public opinion is on their side. The smart play, after Bush's promised veto, is to run out the clock on funding until the last possible moment (probably in about 60-90 days)--and propose essentially the same legislation.

During that time, support for Bush and the war erodes even further--in no small part because of further abuses of power that will likely be revealed by congressional oversight. If Bush continues to hide behind 'executive privilege' and empty 'I'm the decider' rhetoric', he may well find that lying about a blowjob ain't the only think presidents get spanked for.

And it'll be about bloody goddam time.

This Week's Sunday Funnies

For me, the 'Sunday Funnies' are the major network talking head shows--Meet The Press, Face The Nation, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. I'm sure that 'Garfield' is endlessly entertaining to some, but I have a hard time finding anything more entertaining that the spectacle of a senior Republican Senator lamely defending the most incompetent attorney general in U.S. history.

The consensus from senators Hatch, Leahy, Schumer, and Spector (sounds more like the law firm from hell than a partial roster of the Senate Judiciary Committee) is that 'Berto Gonzales is either doing a heckuva job, lying to congress, overdue to resign, or has some explaining to do.

Giving that Patrick Leahy is refusing to budge from Gonzales's originally scheduled testimony on April 17th, given that Arlen Spector has already described that testimony as a 'make or break' situation, and given that the specific reason for keeping the scheduled date is to obtain confidential sworn testimony from DOJ employees, I think it's a fair bet that Chuck Schumer's blunt call for a resignation is a far better predictor for events of the next two weeks than Orrin Hatch's faint praise and reiteration of GOP talking points.

My predictions at this point are that:

• Gonzales will resign before being called in to testify.
• Harriet Miers and Karl Rove will privately testify--transcripts, no oaths.
• Karl Rove will subsequently be given a choice between testifying under oath or being charged with lying to congress.