The Coming Constitutional Crisis (Updated)

I said previously (maybe in one of my Quick Hits, but I don't know where, so no link) that although I believe the Iraq War should be Priority #1 for the Democratic Congress in 2007, the Bush Administration would force a Constitutional Crisis by resisting any kind of investigation or oversight by this Congress.

We may have a two-fer.

Democrats have steadily ratcheted up the rhetoric on the Iraq War, starting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi's call for a "justification" of the escalation on Meet the Press on Sunday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker Pelosi's joint letter to President Bush strongly opposing an escalation. A few days ago, firebrand Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) announced plans to block any funding of the escalation, and yesterday, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) introduced legislation to require Congressional authorization to escalate the troop levels in Iraq.

Many conservative nutbags (no I will NOT link to them) and even Senator Joe Biden (D!-DE) have expressed doubt about the Constitutionality of Congress limiting the President in his escalation. But, already, the Center for American Progress has done a fact-check and come up with many examples of when Congress placed limits on the President's military maneuvers.

Also on Monday, Tony Snow received a lot of questions about Congressional opposition to escalation, and said "the President can exercise his own authority," if he believes Congress is wrong in denying funding. SnowJob might be bluffing, but I doubt it. It sounds almost as if President Bush will escalate regardless of what Congress does or if 80+% of the American people oppose it.

This escalation issue, which Josh Marshall believes was originally intended as a political punt to hand this war off to the next President, is heating up really, really fast. Only a few days into the 110th Congress, and denial of funding is the buzzword.

So, Iraq is clearly the issue that Congress and the Administration want to deal with right now. And you can see where the Constitutional Crisis comes in: if Congress passes (with a veto-proof majority) legislation that blocks funding of the escalation, then I predict President Bush will go ahead with the escalation anyway.

Now, that's a very big 'if' and I'm speculating about the President's response, but honestly, would it really shock anyone to see Republicans start to distance themselves from this war, and subsequently see the Decider ignore the American people, Democrats, the Generals, and a few "wimpy" Republicans? Don't be shocked if it happens. By now, nothing should shock you about this guy- he believes he should answer to no one, and for 6 fucking years he's been right. But he's not (and never has been) connected to reality, and he hasn't accepted the fact that the Democrats are in control now, and the American people are behind the Democrats in ending this war. More importantly, and more revealingly, he doesn't care. He's the Decider.

Think about that for a moment. If I'm right, the President will stage a coup. The Congress, expressing the will of the people and operating well within its Constitutional rights, will try to control the deployment of the military. The President will essentially ignore that, and move the military wherever he damn well pleases. If this happened in some banana republic, no one would hesitate to call this a coup.

Congress will try to end our nightmare in Iraq and discover how much abuse the Administration has engaged in, and the Decider will dare them to take drastic steps to rein him in. This is what lies ahead for us, and despite some Dem fretting here and here, this is what always lay ahead of us. Buckle up, and nut up.

UPDATE:

The troop "surge" is already underway, according to ABC. I think this is a more telling aspect to the inherent cowardice of the Administration. They'd rather preempt the debate than engage in it, because they know they'd lose. The heat's turning up, because I doubt Senator Kennedy will back down. We shall see how committed Dems are to getting the hell out of Iraq, because they'll have to lobby hard to obtain a veto-proof majority in the Senate to pass the Kennedy bill. And even if they succeed, President Bush would ignore the legislation, once again throwing us back into Constitutional Crisis mode.

This Crisis will exist until we deal with it, or until 2009.