Enabling Co-Dependents

Secret prisons flung across the world. Torture. An invasion premised on deliberate misinformation. A city destroyed. A whole region incapacitated months after the initial natural disaster. Warrantless wiretaps.

This is what happens when your Congress is filled with enabling co-dependents who would rather kow-tow to imperial power than perform their constitutional functions as independent checks on executive authority. It's kind of like partying with your friend Ox, and he's been sluggin' back pitchers off the keg all night. You tell Ox it's time to go, hand him the keys to your car, and pour him one last pitcher for the road.

Congressional Republicans have put one-party rule above good public policy for the last five years. Robert Schlesinger has more on the woeful lack of congressional oversight, including this little morsel:

Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, aggressively delving into alleged misconduct by the Clinton administration, logged 140 hours of sworn testimony into whether former president Bill Clinton had used the White House Christmas card list to identify potential Democratic donors.

In the past two years, a House committee has managed to take only 12 hours of sworn testimony about the abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Disgusting.