And if it means a Constitutional crisis, well so be it

Such a crisis is long overdue. This president has put himself above the law and above scrutiny for so long, and craven Republicans and cowed Democrats have gone along with it long enough. If the Democrats cave on this one, they might as well pack up, go home, and declare this a Bush dictatorship for life. Because if Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have nothing to hide, they can damn well say what they have to say under oath and in public.

So far Harry Reid is on board:

"After telling a bunch of different stories about why they fired the U.S. Attorneys, the Bush administration is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt. Congress and the American people deserve a straight answer. If Karl Rove plans to tell the truth, he has nothing to fear from being under oath like any other witness."

So is Patrick Leahy:

“I was glad to meet Mr. Fielding and I welcome the fact that these issues have his full attention.

“I don’t accept his offer. It is not constructive and it is not helpful to be telling the Senate how to do our investigation, or to prejudge its outcome.

“Instead of freely and fully providing relevant documents to the investigating committees, they have only selectively sent documents, after erasing large portions that they do not want to see the light of day.

“Testimony should be on the record, and under oath. That’s the formula for true accountability.

Meanwhile, Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. "Bring 'Em On", Captain Codpiece, Mr. "Smoke 'em out" is whining that asking his advisers to simply tell the truth, under oath, is a "partisan fishing expedition".

I'm going to avoid the obvious segue into the fact that only recently have Republicans decided that "partisan fishing expeditions" are a bad thing, largely because yesterday the Senate voted 94-2 to strip Bush of the authority they spinelessly gave him as part of the USA PATRIOT Act to replace U.S. Attorneys without the Senate's approval.

So let's finally have our confrontation. Let it go to the Supreme Court, if necessary; the very same Supreme Court which stopped the Florida vote count in 2000 and gave the presidency to George W. Bush in a case it did not want used as precedent. Let the Roberts court decide that the president is above the law and his advisers need not be held to the rule of law. Let it be put on the public record forever that George W. Bush and his henhcmen destroyed the very Constitution they swore to uphold, and that his hacks on the Court let him do it.