(Can I take a moment here and clamor - yet again - for an investigative body along the lines of the Truman Committee to investigate war profiteering?)
In a strong overture that they intend to exercise tight control over the power of the purse, the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees indicated that they would be demanding a better accounting of the war’s cost. They also stated their intent to move toward integrating the spending into the regular federal budget, which will put the war costs in the budget. Thus far, they have been hidden and the war has been fought on resolutions. The Three Card Monte method of war financing is done. Vice is shutting down the corner.
Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, the incoming chairmen of the Budget Committes in their respective chambers have been blunt in stating that the administration’s approach of paying for extended military combat operations and related combat support activities through a seemingly endless series of "emergency requests" had inhibited Congressional scrutiny of the spending and had effectively hidden the true price of the war.
Meantime, the administration’s view is still what it has always been: Bush is a Unitary Executive, and Congress can not “bind how the president wants to put together the budget.” (Maybe not, but the congress still has to approve it.)
“They have been playing hide-the-ball,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that does not serve the Congress well nor the country well, and we are not going to continue that practice.”
Mr. Spratt, who along with Mr. Conrad is examining how the Democratic Congress should funnel the war spending requests through the House and Senate, said, “We need to have a better breakout of the costs — period.”
Make no mistake - we are going to see bruising battles over the budget and spending. The President and his party are going to try to paint the Democrats as Defeat-o-crats for demandign accountability, so we have to be ready and shoot down their bull-shit before the landing gear is raised.
They lost. They don't get to frame the debate. They don't get to pose false comparisons or analogies. They don't get to stand on the sidelines and say "What's your plan then? Hmmm?" and nit-pick the process while we clean up the mess they made.
No, they get to sit down and shut up for a change. They get to watch while the grown-ups get the ship of state off the shoals.
They also need a crash-course in humility, but that's a rant unto itself.
However, I think that day might be dawning, because the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows that fully 59% of the American public would not vote for a hypothetical candidate simply because they had served in the Bush administration.
We have a presidnet who has for his entire term of office refused to deal with reality. Now, reality is about to deal with him.
Pop some corn and enjoy the show. It's gonna get good.
