CT Blue

More short sightedness from the Democrats, at least according to the LA Times:

Democrats are not winning the battle to force Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales from office, stymied by a legal system that gives the Bush administration wide discretion to block investigations of itself. And they are not getting the White House witnesses or records they have demanded in recent weeks.

But many Democrats are fine with that.

Although they may prove fruitless, the Democrats’ investigative efforts may help keep President Bush and his administration the center of attention in next year’s elections, even as the Republican Party chooses a new standard-bearer and tries to move on.

It’s all well and good that the Democrats may be able to use Gonzales as a political issue in 2008, but it comes at the cost of demonstrating Congressional (and by extension, Democratic) impotence in the face of an imperial president. We can’t for a moment believe that the lesson will be lost on the next Republican president. When you govern an alleged democracy in the interests of a plutocracy, you tend to look for ways to get around democratic institutions. Bush has done just that, with relish. Nor can we be sure that the electorate will respond as the Democrats expect-they may just stay away from the polls in disgust at a system that is clearly rotten.

The article goes on to give the standard patter about how the Congress lacks the power to enforce its subpoenas, dismissing the power of inherent contempt in a single paragraph:

A third option involves a proceeding known as inherent contempt, in which the House would hold a mini-trial along the lines of an impeachment. The last time that was tried: 1935.

Tried successfully, it might be added. If the Congress refuses to flex its muscles, those muscles will atrophy. The myth that only the executive can enforce Congressional subpoenas will harden into settled law unless Congress uses its powers now. Miers, Rove, et. al. might keep their mouths shut if they were put in prison. So be it. At least their imprisonment would serve as an object lesson that one must pay the price if one blows off Congress.