US Attorney scandal rolls on

The scandal surrounding the firing of eight US attorneys shortly after last years election just keeps getting more interesting. If you have not been following these events, Josh Marshall and his staff at www.talkingpointsmemo.com our doing an excellent job documenting these firings. I highly recommend checking out his site.

What I find interesting is that this appears to leading to a showdown between the Congress and the Bush Administration's theory of the Unitary Executive. Bush, mainly thru consultations with Cheney who has long supported this view, believes that the Executive branch is supreme and the other two branches of our government cannot constitutionally challenge the Executive, particularly in a time of war. To me, this is a patently unamerican interpretation of our Constitution. The Unitary Executive directly contradicts the concept of three equal branches of government which we have been taught since grade school.

It was only a matter of time, before the new Democratically controlled Congress challenged this concept. With so many hearings being conducted simultaneously, who knew which hearing the Bush Administration would refuse to cooperate with. But, given their history, their eventual defiance of Congressional oversight was as sure as the setting of the sun. Bush tossed the gauntlet last week when he went on national TV and announced that he would not allow members of his staff to testify under oath to Congressional judicial oversight committees. Both the senate and house judicial committees responded by voting to subpoena Harriet Miers, and Karl Rove and demand their public testimony under oath. So this is it. Is the Bush Administration above the law, or will members of the Administration have to appear in these hearings? Stay tuned, things are just beginning to heat up.