Darryl Levinson (continued): The decadence of the US Congress

Mon Feb 6 17:11:08 PST 2006

I'm basically with Sandy on the general story he's been telling, but 
I don't see that this incident has much to do with "cravenness."  
One might say that, in the past, Senators (of both parties) trusted 
Cabinet members to tell the truth, and therefore didn't insist on an 
oath, and that the Republicans were following tradition, while the 
Democrats were trying to score political points.  And, particularly 
because this is the AG, and with the expiration of the independent 
counsel statute, the possibility of a perjury prosecution is so small 
that there's no point in going through the charade of the oath.  If it 
turns out that someone can pin a lie on the AG, there'll be no less 
damage than if he had sworn an oath.
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>From the NYTimes story on Gonzales's testimony:

When Mr. Feingold pushed to have Mr. Gonzales sworn in, Mr. Specter
called for a vote. The committee voted, 10 to 8, along party lines not
to have Mr. Gonzales sworn in.

=20

What more need be said about the cravenness of the US Congress--and the
priority of party loyalty?  (Were the Republicans (properly) afraid that
Gonzales might commit perjury?)   Recall, incidentally, that Bush wasn't
required to testify under oath before the 9/11 Commission.  Is this just
another sign of monarchical prerogative in our new constitutional
system?=20

sandy =20

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Conlawprof Digest, Vol 28, Issue 5</TITLE>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Dus-ascii">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1515" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV dir=3Dltr align=3Dleft>
From the=20
NYTimes story on Gonzales's testimony:
When Mr. Feingold pushed =
to have Mr.=20
Gonzales sworn in, Mr. Specter called for a vote. The committee voted, =
10 to 8,=20
along party lines not to have Mr. Gonzales sworn in.
&nbsp;
What=20
more need be said about the cravenness of the US Congress--and the =
priority of=20
party loyalty?&nbsp; (Were the Republicans (properly) afraid that =
Gonzales might=20
commit perjury?)&nbsp;&nbsp; Recall, incidentally, that Bush wasn't =
required to=20
testify under oath before the 9/11 Commission.&nbsp; Is this just =
another sign=20
of monarchical prerogative in our new constitutional=20
system?&nbsp;
sandy&nbsp; </DIV></BODY></HTML>

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