Some of us in the vast left-wing conspiracy have been asking what’s the matter with Kansas, some what’s the matter with the Democrats, and others go meta and ask what’s the matter with what’s the matter with Kansas.  I want to ask a different question.  What the hell is the matter with the Republicans?

Last week, Pat Roberts, the Senator from Kansas since 1996 and Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, wrote a letter supporting Bush’s illegal wiretapping and agreeing to the preposterous claim that Congress cannot regulate where the President claims war powers, no matter how specious the claim.  In Judiciary Committee hearings on the matter, the Republican members fought hard to ensure that Attorney General Gonzalez would not be under oath.  Orrin Hatch simply walked Gonzalez through the talking points, and Jon Kyl and Charles Grassley affirmed that breaking congressional statutes was an inherent power of the presidency.  Grassley actually admitted to phoning Gonzalez prior to the hearings to help set up his presentation.

Now, to become a Senator, you need to be an ambitious person.  It’s a powerful position and one that is hard to attain.  Think of all the back-stabbing and back-room deals it takes, how many lesser people had to be stomped underfoot.  Watch C-SPAN some time and you’ll see the level of self-importance characteristic of these guys (and they are almost all guys).  The Senate is supposed to be the premier deliberative body in the American government, and so they probably have good reason to think of themselves as important.

What they are doing here is simply handing over virtually unlimited power to the President.  Once they do that, they aren’t going to be too important any more.

The administration asserts that it has constitutional authority to do anything it wishes that is related to national defense.  It gets to determine what is related to defense and what tactics it wants to use, and nobody, not the courts, not Congress, can intervene.  As Dick Cheney says, “We have all the legal authority we need.”  Congress can suggest changes, but “we’d have to make a decision, as the administration.”  Cheney said we’d all just be better off if Congress didn’t know too much about it.  Secrecy and security, you know.

These are not war powers.  Congress did not declare war, and no matter what the rhetorical strategy of the Bush regime, America is not legally at war.

The Republican senators are assisting the administration in a claim that it gets to decide what the Constitution means and who it applies to.  This also means that they can decide about any other laws as well.  If this seems like going too far, the President has asserted the authority to do any searches it sees fit (Fourth Amendment), imprison without due process (Fifth Amendment), hold without access to counsel and ability to confront witnesses (Sixth Amendment), decide on military rules (Article I), and to ignore treaties (Article VI).  That’s just a start.

The Democrats are having a hard time coming up with an effective rhetorical and organizational strategy.  People in Kansas seem to vote in ways counter to their economic interests.  Thomas Frank’s analysis probably understates the importance of symbols.

The Republican party is selling our constitution down the river to a bunch of petty, authoritarian incompetents.  And that really matters.

Pete DeWan