[mburbank]

" I know you really need to do this but it's just not the president's responsibility worry about whether or not Congress is going to do their job. Congress has to take responsibility for that."

I see your point, but as the leader of the country, I think there are certain limmits on Machiavelian behavior we should be able to expect on their own, without congress hving to reel the executive branch in. Suppose tthe President had asked for the incarceration of all Arab Americans for the duration of the 'war' on terrorism. If Congress let him do it, shame on them, but shame on him for asking. I think some of the things he asked of during this time of crisis and the speed with which he asked for their approval were abuses of American trust. I think Congress dropped the ball, but I also think the administration conived and lied in ways that are shameful even within the already shameful realm of politics, especially for a man who campaigned as a 'uniter, not a divider'.

I see the media's job as making it as hard as possible for a president, Democrat or Republican, to get away with lies.

I think the Democrats upheld their responsabilities as the opposition party in the area of judicial appointments. I think they abdicated it in both foreign and domestic policy in absolutely every other arena.

" It's not his job to actually wright the laws..... "

Hmmm. Someone ought to tell Dick Chenney and John Ashcroft that. They could use the opportunity to tell them that Lobbyists are REALY not supposed to write legislation.


"Max, they looked at the same intel. PERIOD."

That statement is in some cases incorrect and in others highly credulous. Chenneys office had under secretaries in the Pentagon funnelling hand picked, unvetted intelligence directly to the VPs office, and this is a matter of public record at this point. Looking at the same intel as someone else is no excuse in cases like the Nigerian Yellowcake when it has been determined that you could prove those documents false with the internet. Looking at documents without making any effort to see if they are true or not absolves you of nothing. If you and an expert look at the same piece of Intel and the expert says "This is an obvious forgery" and you say "This is proof positive and leaves no doubt that Iraq is attempting to build a nuclear weapon," the fact you both saw the same thing is irrelevant. The same goes for Iraqi unmaned drones, aluminum tubes, word of mouth reports from highly unreliable Iraqi National Congress members with HUGE vested interest living in America on the CIA dime, mobile weapons labs and whatever unreleased intelligence allowed Rumsfeld and W to both say we knew where the weapons were. What they looked at is not so much the isue as how they chose to interpret it, and how they chose to play up things they may well have known were false. Putting a PERIOD on it is basically saying what congress did. "I know you would never lie to me, and I know you've given this the proper scrutiny and I know this is the real reason you're doing what you're doing".

"Senators like John Kerry voted for the war either because they believed the intel. or for political reasons. "

You might be suprised I agree with you partially here. I think Kerry voted for the war as a political calculation, and it's why he wasn't my first choice for the nomination. Again, it's not the intel, it's the spin, and I think some in congress didn't think the administration would actively spin such a serious matter.

"You can't say the administration abused trust just because Congress didn't do it's job."

I don't. I say both took place, no 'just' involved. If congres abdicated respponsabilty when W. asked for better parking, I say W. was not at fault. This is a wee bit bigger, and I think the President has national responsability beyond doing whatever the Congress doesn't prevent him from doing.