Some Free Advice

I have been arguing for some time now that if the Democrats do manage to take one or both House of Congress, they should resist the urge to pay the GOP back for what happened after 1994--a legislative, investigative full-scale attack on the presidency, culminating in the impeachment debacle. I argued this for purely practical reasons: it doesn't work. Bill Clinton used his political judo against Congress and ended up more popular on the day he was impeached than George W. Bush has been in over a year. Now, via the Carpetbagger Report, Paul Krugman has a different perspective. Krugman's thesis, in a nutshell, is that Republicans are inherently, intrinsicly evil and no matter how bi-partisan Democrats try to be, the GOP will stab them in the back at the first opportunity. Given the Republic Party's fixation with racism and other despicable campaign tactics, and dangerous militarist fantasies, I have a hard time disagreeing with the basic premise. On the other hand, the GOP has at least two things the Democrats don't, namely total dominance of the media and huge piles of special interest money. Even if a subpoena war was in the best interest of the nation, I'm not sure we could win it. Yes, there should be investigations, definately; Bush and Cheney have turned the White House into a political chamber of horrors. And, of course, this revamped, retread Nixonian version of the Imperial Presidency will reject any effort by Congress to dare infringe on its apparently god-like powers. In fact, it may well be that, whether or not Democrats want a war, Bush will force one by continuing to systematically ignore the checks and balances of the Constitution.