Wash Post Monday Page A1: Democrats To Widen Conflict With Bush

[Hissyspit]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/01/AR2007040100766.html

Democrats To Widen Conflict With Bush
Some on Both Sides See Plans as Risky

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 2, 2007; Page A01

Even as their confrontation with President Bush over Iraq escalates, emboldened congressional Democrats are challenging the White House on a range of issues -- such as unionization of airport security workers and the loosening of presidential secrecy orders -- with even more dramatic showdowns coming soon.

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Despite the threats, Democratic lawmakers expect to open new fronts against the president when they return from their spring recess, including politically risky efforts to quickly close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; reinstate legal rights for terrorism suspects; and rein in what Democrats see as unwarranted encroachments on privacy and civil liberties allowed by the USA Patriot Act. "I suppose there's always a risk of going too far," said House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), "but the risk of not going is far greater."

Backed by a unified party and fresh from a slew of legislative victories, Democratic leaders appear to believe there is hardly any territory they cannot stray onto, a development that has Republican political operatives gleeful and some Democrats worried. Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, warned of a "political price" at the polls: "If they let their constituents and their ideology drive them past the point where the American people are comfortable, they will find how quickly the voters will react."

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But even conservative Democrats insist their party is in no danger of overreaching its mandate from the November elections. Rep. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), a conservative Democrat who squeaked out a victory in November against the Republican who had taken the seat from him two years earlier, said he was concerned early on that Democratic leaders would mount a "witch hunt" against Bush and his policies. But, he said, they are far from any witch hunts.

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[Parisle]

1. "Widening" is Ok,....

--- But what they need to do is "kick it up a notch," .... as in going for the jugular. Impeachment should be but a fond preface to discussions of subsequent prison sentences and property seizures. As it can be reliably demonstrated that the PNAC Manifesto was behind the entire Bush agenda, the PNAC should, by Congressional vote, be declared a criminal subversive organization,... and all its members held to charges.

--- As for offsetting the potential for a Bush invasion of Iran, the democrats should ALREADY have let it subtly slip out that, should this happen, then discussions are underway to provide that, once a democrat is in the White House in 2008, every Pentagon figure complying with Bush's insane CIC directives will find themselves not only stripped of position, pension and freedom,... but possibly pleading for clemency, as well.

--- It should also be made a subject of discreet discussion that corporate enablers of the PNAC, particularly those in Cheney's secret Energy Panel meetings, will be required to provide testimony to Congress. A sub-category of this group could include the ultra-rich ideologues such as the Mellon-Scaiffes, etc who bankrolled the PNAC and the Bush junta. They should be made to realize that they can do this the easy way or the hard way.