Legislative-Executive Branch

Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post has a written a great article outlining the changing power dynamic inside the beltway. Depending on what side of the spectrum you stand on, this article either put a smile on your face, made you wish for the colonial days (see: Daniel Day Lewis), or had you hiding in a closet clutching your blankie.

Whats most troubling to me is the evaporation of distinction b/w the executive and legislative branches of government. Especially within the context of the electoral college that selects our president. Let me preface this by saying that if I was a religious zelot, an insecure and homophobic redneck, or a very rich business man: I be exhaulting George W. Bush as the best president since Eleanor Roosevelt. At the very least, I must tip may hat to his political skills for the deft sligh of hand used to divert political currency from the 9/11 tragedy to more invidual power goals like Iraq and gays. Thus, at the very least, democrats must recognize the tremendous political skill it takes to be delt a hand as good as W got and not fuck it up. He's carried it so far as to threaten removing the filibuster (which any good southerner will tell you about) from Senate rules of procedure.

That being said, government in the United States is no longer about Freedom or Prosperity or even Happiness; governing in contemporary society is about the allocation of power. Who gets what to compensate for that tiny little Viagra machine (only becuase african americans without Islamic sounding names are not allowed grace the Senate floor). Essentially what Bush (or his administration, where the credit goes for the bungles and huge fleecing of american tax dollars will be the topic of poli.sci debate for years to come ["Karl Rove wore the pants in the oval," "No Danforth, Cheney ran the show," "Fuck all of you, Tom the Hammer, he sucked the best dick so he ran the show."]) has done is consolidate any power that his party will give him from the legislative branch. This power, in turn, is used to prop up people who don't disagree and whom will fall right in line and not ask questions. enThe dialogue required to mine truth from the clutches of (Satan, or Socrates, or Ra; pick your posion) is completely absent. What our system of government amounts to is one man deciding what is best for us. What happed to freedom? What happened to choice? These things are dead in American democracy. They glimmer everynow and then. But for all intensive purposes they are dead.

What would Kinky do?