Every once in a while, I look through the political cartoons of Dr. Seuss and find some that perfectly capture what I’ve been wanting to say That and they’re pretty damn funny.

This is one I wanted to post last year as a comment on the rampant war profiteering under the Bush Administration. I’m glad I didn’t now, beacuse the metaphor has a relevance now that’s shocking.



Even though these two are about WW2 appeasement, they do a good job summing up my frustrations with the Democratic leadership.

A commenter over at Firedoglake dissed my earlier post saying comparing the censure vote and the President’s approval ratings is like “comparing apples and oranges”. Fair enough, I suppose, but that was the best data we had to work with. Now that there’s been some actual polling on the censure issue, here’s further proof that the Democrats in D.C. are completely out of touch with the American people and their own base (via Kevin Drum) :

I’m increasingly frustrated by the fact that the vast majority of what we liberal bloggers write is written off by the Dem establishment. These guys probably haven’t even seen a blog except for the rare occasion when one of their aides prints out a post and attaches a Post-It with the warning “The plebs are getting restless, sir”, yet every word we write seems to be disregarded as uninformed and naive missives from the outer fringes of the far-left. As blog readers you probably agree with me that this simpleminded confusion of the medium with the message is much more idiotic than the stereotype that applies to us, but I can’t help but think that there’s a willfull ignorance among many in the Democratic establishment about our true gripes.

What they don’t seem to get is that the vast majority of campaigns undertaken by the liberal blogosphere aren’t intended to change the minds of Democratic leaders, but to encourage action on ideals we think they have, but don’t have the political will to actually do anything about. For the most part I could care less about where most Democrats fall on the moderate/liberal spectrum, I just want them to stand up for what they believe in. For lack of an equally-powerful, gender-neutral term, here’s my message to Democrats :

Don’t be a fucking pussy, just say what you believe in.

Do you honestly think the President’s lawbreaking isn’t as big a deal as Clinton’s perjury? Then stop dicking us around and actually say it. I might not agree with you, but I’d at least respect you for taking a stand. The way things stand right now, the Democratic party is so emasculated and so well-trained by the Republican majority that they’re terrified of siding with a plurality of Americans on a clear-issue.

There’s no ambiguity here. The President eschewed Congressional overtures to amend FISA and promised Americans that we don’t spy without a court order, while blatantly ignoring the law. The President committed crimes, continues to commit those crimes, and has admitted to all fo this. This is clearly wrong and the vast majority of your base agrees. If you’re afraid of taking a popular stand on an important issue, why the hell should anyone vote for you? If this is a preview of what a Democratic majority in the Senate will look like (and 2001-2002 was a similarly embarassing indicator), then we aren’t that much worse off with the status quo.

Wow. I never expected to see something this crazy in a pop-up ad :

Jeez, and to think I felt bad for jumping to the conclusion that Cheney tried to cover the shooting up because he was drunk.

I think every time I read an article like this…

The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes.

The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature.

The measure allows the government to pay for the war in Iraq and finance Medicare and other big federal programs without raising taxes. It passed hours before the House was expected to approve another $91 billion to fund the war in Iraq and provide more aid to hurricane victims.
. . .
The debt limit will increase by $781 billion. It’s the fourth such move _ increasing the debt limit by a total of $3 trillion _ since Bush took office five years ago.

…I’m going to forego the obvious commentary and just print this quote from George W. Bush :

“I also want to talk about the national challenges we face. I believe that — I’m an optimist. I’m an optimist about our economy. And I should be. The fundamentals are strong, interest rates are low, monetary policy is sound. I can assure you I will work with Congress to control excessive federal spending. One reason they give the President the veto power is to make sure the Congress doesn’t over-spend. Over-spending could serve as an anchor on economic vitality and growth.”

We’re still waiting for the boy who cried wolf to veto something.

Wanna see something really scary? Here’s a video that leaked online last year of a fake news broadcast that was part of the Department of Homeland Security’s TOPOFF 3 terrorist attack drill. The level of detail completely freaks me out.

While my mind is stuck in 9/11 mode, does anyone who was glued to CNN on that evening remember seeing them cut to an empty street scene and hold on it for a few seconds before their reporter popped into frame from the bottom of the screen like a jack-in-the-box? After spending an entire day in crushing despair, that little moment of levity was really cathartic. I wish I had a clip of that to share with everyone.

Yesterday on CNN, Ed Henry gave the following update on the Feingold censure resolution :

What just happened a few minutes ago is that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the reason why there was an objection, is Frist declared he wants to bring this up for an immediate vote tonight, so it will not be a free pass. He wants to get Democrats on record here, make them decide whether they want to take what could be seen as an extreme stand and vote for a censure of President Bush.

Frist is gambling that in fact this will go down something like 85-to-15 or 90-10 because a lot of Democrats are probably saying they will not support this.

Assuming only ten Democrats end up supporting the censure resolution, where does that leave us? Well, take a look at these internals from the latest CBS poll (via Atrios) :

If only 10 of 44 Democrats are willing to stand against the President, that gives Bush a greater approval rating among Democratic Senators (77%) than among his own base (74%). Cowards.

Digby’s got a great take on what he calls “god baiting” :

I hesitate to call this kind of lazy observation “religious correctness” because that gives the impression of an objection to rude derisive language about religion. This is something else. It’s “God-baiting” designed to put any critic on the defensive if the person they are criticizing is religious. (The right, interestingly enough, is using this and its close cousin, race-baiting, very effectively these days. Nice to see people on “our side” helping them out — again.)

Every secular “knee jerk liberal” has voted for religious candidates their whole lives. Indeed, it is impossible not to. You cannot get elected in this country if you do not profess religious belief. We have enthusiastically backed candidates who are from every religious tradition and from every region. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were both born again, southern evangelicals. We do not scorn religious candidates, period.

Lots of people have chimed in to voice their respect for religious freedom (which is kinda sad to realize that the mix of religious and political interests has become so toxic that people feel the need to reiterate their support for a basic right), but let me dust off a walf-written post that I’ve been meaning to finish for a while now. With apologies to Bill Maher for stealing his schtick, here’s a new rule :

Conservative Christians can’t accuse liberals of disrespecting their religion until they stop disrespecting it themselves.

Case in point, here’s something I picked up at the grocery store recently that you’d think religious people would find offensive :

Magic Healing Oils from the Bible? Now it’s been a few years since I’ve read the Bible straight through, but I don’t remember reading anything about aromatherapy. Granted, there’s the occasional mention of oil and, yes, Jesus does a lot of healing, but the last time I checked, those were supposed to be miracles, not two-bit parlor tricks than can be replicated by anyone who gives a buck to the cashier at Safeway.

And if you think throwing the word “Bible” onto a disposable new-agey “mini-mag” is a cheap and offensive way to try to trick Christians out of their money, the inside is even worse :

That’s right, ads for psychic hotlines. In fact, every advertisment in the magazine is for one of those fraudulent TV psychics. Considering that this is aimed in part at the same audience who thinks D&D, Harry Potter, and the Smurfs are forms of witchcraft that have no business in a Christian home, you’d think the blurring of the lines between Jesus and Miss Cleo would ruffle a few feathers.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case. At the same time that religious leaders are up in arms over Brokeback Mountain, a movie most audiences (to their eternal shame) would have to be dragged to, this little bit of sacrilege is among the impulse items at just about every grocery store in the country. Which of these two do you think is more widespread and insulting towards Christians?

You might point out that this is also sitting next to Star Magazine and Soap Opera Digest or that this doesn’t represent “true Christians”. Perhaps so, but look what I found at Hackman’s Bible Book Store, ChristianBook.com, and Parable.com.

Look familiar? It’s the same pseudo-Christian garbage selling at retailers who cater to an exclusively Christian audience. Is there an uproar over this sort of thing being sold to people of faith? Are James Dobson and Jarry Falwell planning boycotts? Of course not, because this is a little scam that they’re all in together.

So you think liberalism is insulting your religion? So be it, but don’t forget what Jesus had to say :

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Why are you wasting your time with foolish crusades with little scriptural significance like gay marriage, school prayer, and the like? Your God is being used as a marketing gimick. For those of you who have only opened a Bible on a Sunday morning, you might recall that the only time Jesus ever gets angry in the gospels is when he enters the temple and sees it overrun with money changers, yet here we are 2000 years later and Jesus’ most vocal (which isn’t the same as most devoted) followers are participating in a multi-billion dollar industry dedicated to exploiting religious devotion for monetary gain. I couldn’t think of anything more blasphemous if I tried. So if you want to defend your religion, you should start by trying to stop those who are working to make Jesus Christ the next Ronald McDonald.

For those who don’t even have the strength to support a symbolic action, here’s the perfect mascot for a party stuck in the past because they don’t seem to have a future. Here’s hoping somebody steps up to prove me wrong.

Posted with apologies to Oliver Willis.

Andrew Sullivan’s attempt to defend himself for his support of George Bush is infuriating. Like so much of what he writes, the lesson is that if Andy does something, it’s because he’s carefully considered both sides of an argument and made a reasonable, informed decision. When liberals come to the exact same conclusions, it’s because they’re petty, ignorant, hyper-partisan and motivated by nothing other than a blind hatred for all things Bush :

[Krugman] has one decent point: yes, I lionized George W. Bush for a while after 9/11, and, in retrospect, my attempt to place trust in him at a time of national peril was a misjudgment. But then, in times of peril, some of us feel that supporting the president, whoever he is, and hoping he gets things right, are not contemptible impulses. I should have been more skeptical. In less dire circumstances, I might have been. But some of us, in the days after 9/11, did not immediately go into partisan mode, put aside some of our other objections (like the fiscal mess and the anti-gay policies), and rallied behind a president at war.

Andy, do us all a favor and cut the bullshit about “some of us…did not immediately go into partisan mode”. I don’t know anyone who didn’t to give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt after 9/11. Anyone. Even those I knew who hated Bush with a passion were willing to give the illiterate goob a second chance. Everyone I know was hit with the same soul-crushing despair on 9/11 and was desperate for a leader to unite behind.

But remember back to those confusing days after the attacks, you may recall that George W. Bush wasn’t anywhere to be found. So all the goodwill was going to the guy who stepped up and did his job for him, Rudy Giuliani. Hell, Bush wasn’t even the first President to step up to the plate :

Over now familiar refrains of “that’s unreal,” and “I can’t believe it,” and pregnant moans of “wow,” a spectacle of a different kind captured unblinking New Yorkers yesterday afternoon. Out of Manhattan’s Union Square came a welcome and commanding sight: former President Bill Clinton, surrounded by a growing mass of people.
. . .
“We need to just bolster people’s spirits right now, and support the president and the government,” he said between handshakes. “They’re going to need some time with this.”

Clinton, who was in Australia when New York and Washington, D.C., were attacked, said he had spent the previous 24 hours flying to New York on an Air Force plane. He was kept informed of developments by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).
. . .
Many said Clinton’s short appearance both magnified and made up for what they called President George W. Bush’s shortcomings during this crisis. The White House announced that the president would visit New York, for the first time, today.

“So far he has not been a comforting presence,” said Emily Vacchiano, 26, who lives in SoHo. “He has not conveyed compassion or strength. Just the sight of him [Clinton] cheered everyone up today.”

But even with this leadership void and the President leaving all the heavy lifting of comforting a shell-shocked nation to Rudy and Bill, all of the lefties I knew were willing to heed Clinton’s advice and give the Administration some time. Even with the President giving the best speech of his life a week later, actions speak louder than words.

And that’s where most of us got off the bus. Andy may be proud to pat himself on the back for putting aside his objections to “the fiscal mess and the anti-gay policies”, but where was the sense of bipartisanship and sacrifice in the President’s actions after 9/11? I’m all about compromise, but the President’s agenda didn’t change one iota after the attacks on New York and Washington D.C.

To use the examples cited, Bush was [s]elected ten months earlier against the backdrop of a booming economy with the promise to cut taxes and give Americans “their” money back. With the attacks sure to have a heavy economic toll, the centerpiece of Bush’s agenda suddenly became a one-size-fits-all solution that would reinvigorate the economy. Booming economy? Tax cuts. On the eve of a recession? Tax cuts. With a few million $300 checks in the mail, a lot of us were left asking “Are you sure you don’t need that money to, say, go after Osama bin Laden?”. Doesn’t wartime require a sacrifice of some sort?

The “anti-gay policies” was an even bigger indicator that 9/11 didn’t anything about the President’s plans for the country. In post-attack America, that was unified and bracing for war, the President could have easily issued an executive order overturning the absurd “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with a statement like “anyone willing to die for his or her country has earned the right to defend the nation without being judged”. As a result of the result of the President being perpetually stuck in “partisan mode”, we’ve seen hundreds of people discharged since 9/11 (including at least 7 Arabic translators).

So spare me this crap about liberals being overly partisan following 9/11. The President got everything he wanted after the attacks (the PATRIOT Act being the best example), but once it was clear that the spirit of bipartisanship and compromise was only going to be one-sided, Americans of all stripes started to realize that the President couldn’t be taken at his word. With an event as jarring as what we experienced, a lot of us were hoping the catchphrase “9/11 changed everything” would be…well..true. But it wasn’t. The only thing 9/11 changed was the justifications for the actions the President already wanted to take.

This morning I referred to Joe Liberman as “Goose” for his penchant for playing wingman to John “Maverick” McCain, but after watching the Democrats in the Senate distance themselves from Russ Feingold’s centure resolution, I’m starting to think Joementum fits in a lot better than most of us want to admit :

Feingold, a potential presidential candidate, said on the Senate floor, “The president has violated the law and Congress must respond.”

“A formal censure by Congress is an appropriate and responsible first step to assure the public that when the president thinks he can violate the law without consequences, Congress has the will to hold him accountable,” Feingold said.

immediate vote that Majority Leader Bill Frist requested. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he didn’t know if there ever would be one. Durbin said that Feingold had sought to use the censure resolution “as a catalyst” for thorough hearings and investigations.

The referral averted a debate and a vote that Democrats privately worried would alienate voters who could decide close elections.

Throughout the day, Feingold’s fellow Democrats said they understood his frustration but they held back overt support for the resolution.

Several said they wanted first to see the Senate Intelligence Committee finish an investigation of the warrantless wiretapping program that Bush authorized as part of his war on terrorism.

Asked at a news conference whether he would vote for the censure resolution, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada declined to endorse it and said he hadn’t read it.
. . .
Across the Capitol, reaction was similar. Feingold’s censure resolution drew empathy but no outright support from Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi “understands Sen. Feingold’s frustration that the facts about the NSA domestic surveillance program have not been disclosed appropriately to Congress,” her office said in a statement. “Both the House and the Senate must fully investigate the program and assign responsibility for any laws that may have been broken.”

The way these people fall back into “we need to gather all the facts” mode is fucking pathetic. With this crowd playing “opposition”, if the President were found with a dead whore in his bed, the closest they’d get to criticism is to insist that they’re “withholding judgment until we’re certain that she was really a prostitute”. Feingold rebuked Pelosi and Reid’s cowardly verbal shuffling this morning on CNN :

S. O’BRIEN: But you know, you say, we listened and listened, but the truth is the issue is under investigation now. The jury is not back actually on whether this is a legal. Why not wait until…

FEINGOLD: Actually, Soledad, the jury has been dismantled. The only committee that was able to handle this was the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Intelligence Committee, the whole committee, a majority of the committee, isn’t even going to be allowed to hear about what this program is. And, frankly, in those hearings, we’ve heard enough to know that we don’t know everything about the program.

But we also know that there is no basis and no argument that’s credible that this program is legal. In other words, there’s a lot more to find out about how the program works, but it’s already very clear, and many Republican senators have said that there is no legal basis for it.

We’ve known this program was illegal for three months now and we know the President intentionally broke the law even when proposals were floated to amend FISA, so what the hell are they waiting for? Either the Democrats in the Senate are too goddamn stupid to see the truth when it’s right in front of them or they’re too cowardly to stand up and do the right thing. Either way, they’re once again proving that the modern Democratic party can’t be counted on to do the right thing.

I honestly doubt the Democrats will take back either branch of Congress this November. I think they lack most of the qualities necessary to win. They don’t have the willingness to stand on principle, which just reinforces the stereotype that all Dems are weak. They’re afraid to fight dirty even after getting dragged through the mud for the Rove machine for the past seven years. They don’t know how to manipulate the media and get them to disseminate their message. They can’t be trusted to take a firm stand on any issue aside from Social Security. And after a year of GOP woes, including Plame, Schiavo, Abramoff, NSA spying, and Katrina, they’re still unable to muster the guts to even support a symbolic Senate resolution. All things being equal, if we’re gonna lose in November, I hope we lose big and get rid of some of these cowards. The party of Libermans (or is that Liebermen?) is just holding us back at this point.

Krugman hammers on the phoniest Senator on the hill (via Americablog) :

So here’s what you need to know about John McCain.

He isn’t a straight talker. His flip-flopping on tax cuts, his call to send troops we don’t have to Iraq and his endorsement of the South Dakota anti-abortion legislation even while claiming that he would find a way around that legislation’s central provision show that he’s a politician as slippery and evasive as, well, George W. Bush.

He isn’t a moderate. Mr. McCain’s policy positions and Senate votes don’t just place him at the right end of America’s political spectrum; they place him in the right wing of the Republican Party.

And he isn’t a maverick, at least not when it counts. When the cameras are rolling, Mr. McCain can sometimes be seen striking a brave pose of opposition to the White House. But when it matters, when the Bush administration’s ability to do whatever it wants is at stake, Mr. McCain always toes the party line.

To put things into numbers, here’s something I posted to compare McCain to his Senate peers two years ago :

Just for kicks, I’ve looked up the legislative scorecard numbers of five of the senate presidential candidates for the ACLU, NAACP, AFL-CIO, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of Conservation Voters, and the American Association of University Women. And, just for the hell of it, I’ve included the Christian Coalition and American Conservative Union and also included a few prominent Congressional conservatives as well. For the most part these ratings are of the 107th Congress or the legislative sessions of 2001 or 2002. For those who want some more information, the group names in the table below link to the actual reports.

liberal conservative	ACLU	NAACP	AFL-CIO	HRC	LCV	AAUW	CC	ACU
Edwards	60%	94%	96%	100%	68%	100%	0%	15%
Gephardt	71%	89%	88%	100%	91%	91%	0%	12%
Kerry	60%	100%	90%	100%	92%	100%	0%	6%
Kucinich	64%	89%	98%	100%	95%	73%	33%	13%
Lieberman	40%	94%	82%	100%	88%	88%	20%	20%
Delay	7%	22%	2%	0%	0%	0%	100%	96%
Thurmond	20%	12%	12%	0%	4%	0%	100%	91%
Lott	20%	12%	9%	0%	0%	13%	100%	93%
Hastert	17%	N/A	7%	0%	N/A	0%	100%	93%
McCain	0%	24%	17%	14%	36%	13%	60%	84%

Or to put things another way, McCain is just the Lieberman of the GOP. His voting record is mostly partisan, but he’s earned his reputation by pretending to be above partisan politics. We all know that’s bullshit, but it should be repeated again and again every time the “straight talk express” opens his mouth. It’s all an act and if you believe it, you’re a fool.

And speaking of Lieberman, I should point out that McCain’s bipartisan act wouldn’t work if he didn’t have a reliable wingman. Or to put things in Top Gun terms, if McCain is a “Maverick”, then Lieberman is a “Goose”. If you don’t want this Goose to see the end of the movie either, do what you can to support Ned Lamont.

Here’s an inspiring bit of propaganda that I originally found at Archive.org and just uploaded to my YouTube account. This 1947 short does an admirable job connecting the dots between prejudice and despotism.

I’ve uploaded a few other interesting videos to YouTube as well, so if you’re looking to kill some time, click here.

To call Slate’s lazy hatchet-job of Republican conventional wisdom “bullshit” would be a compliment to the fecal matter of male bovines. Nevertheless, if you look beyond the Pelosi, Reid, and Dean bashing, there’s a tiny bit that’s worthwhile :

But more important than what the three stooges do wrong is what they can’t seem to do at all, namely articulate a positive agenda for reform and change. Voters have grown disenchanted with Bush’s mishandling of the war in Iraq and the country’s finances, and with the evangelical tilt of many of his policies. But there remains a baseline mistrust of Democrats on security, the economy, and values issues. For a sweep big enough to recover both houses of Congress, the party will almost certainly need an affirmative message as well as a negative one.

Granted this is a summary of the same hackneyed “What’s the Democratic message?” question that journalists have been writing in a tag-team fashion for a few years now, but it does hint at an important point.

If the Republicans lose in November, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Democrats won.

I’ve been hard on the Democrats for being spineless cowards who aren’t even willing to defend themselves, but this whole obsession with coming up with the “message” is way overblown. Yeah, you guys need to get your shit together, be on the same page, and offer a compelling alternative to the GOP culture of corruption, but there’s no rush. The “Contract with America” came out only six weeks before the 1994 midterms. If you guys are still entertaining fantasies of having a similar victory, you should keep your cards extremely close to your chest until it’s close enough to election day for the country to remember your ideas.

As far as what those ideas should be, I’d suggest taking a cue from FDR. Something like this from his final State of the Union address would make a good foundation for the future of the Democratic party :

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

As our Nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

America’s own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

Maybe you could borrow some of the wording from FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech as well. If the Democrats came out with their “Freedom Agenda” that focused on pursuing a freedom from want, freedom from fear, etc., it could go a long way towards ending the myth that the Republican party is the only one that has any ideas.

(Originally posted at Firedoglake)

At first glance, the line-item veto seems like a good idea. With the way Congress lumps unrelated bullshit into everything they pass, it makes sense to trim the fat somewhere. But there are some good reasons why the line-item veto should be opposed. For one, it’s unconstitutional (via C&L) :

The line-item veto is unconstitutional, the Supreme Court decided Thursday, ruling that Congress did not have the authority to hand that power to the president.

The 6-3 ruling said that the Constitution gives a president only two choices: either sign legislation or send it back to Congress. The 1996 line-item veto law allowed the president to pencil out specific spending items approved by the Congress.

In his majority opinion Justice John Paul Stevens upheld a lower court’s decision, concluding “the procedures authorized by the line-item veto act are not authorized by the Constitution.”

So if we want to discuss passing a line-item veto eight years after the Supreme Court blocked it, we’re into the realm of amending the constitution. But if we’re going to go that far, why not address the real problem and seek an amendment that forbids Congress from adding unrelated earmarks, provisions, etc. to their bills? Because the GOP, who’s have always been the ones who fight for this, have never wanted to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, they just want to cut enough spending to look like they care.

With a Bush Presidency, there’s an additional reason why the line-item veto is a bad idea. He’s always been too chickenshit to use a real veto, but you can bet he’d take the first opportunity to use the line-item variety to punish Democrats and “moderate” Republicans. With the way things work in Congress right now, individual earmarks are the main tool used to collect votes for controversial bills. Most controversial bills are a “bridge to nowhere” or two away from passing, but what’s to stop the White House from stripping those legislative bribes from the bill after the fact? Considering the unusual closeness between Congressional leadership and the Presidency, a good cop / bad cop routine would be be inevitable.