Stop the presses! A major discovery has been made:
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert has shown signs of having a pulse!
Surprised experts say this might mean that Hastert is not just a bloated
papier-mâché political puppet after all — he may have
the capacity for independent thought. Dennis — the laconic, doughy, somewhat comical
congresscritter from Illinois — was lifted into the speaker’s
chair in 1999 by Tom DeLay. Ever since, DeLay and the Bush White House have
pulled Dennis’ strings and given him his lines, which he dutifully
performed. But Dennis recently had a rebellious spasm. What
jolted him to life was the FBI’s raid of a congressman’s office
as part of a bribery investigation. This infuriated the normally lifeless
Dennis, who complained loudly that breaking into a member’s office is
an intolerable crossing of the constitutional line that separates the
executive and legislative branches. Hastert said he was standing up to
sustain Congress’s independence. Holy Tom Jefferson — what a joke! Hastert and
the other congressional leaders (including Democrats) have been total
constitutional wimps for the past five years as the Bushites rolled over
any pretension of legislative-branch independence. For example, Bush has
run a massive spying program against millions of Americans in direct
defiance of a law passed by Congress — but not a peep of protest from
Dennis about this. Indeed, again and again, congressional leaders have
either meekly bowed or enthusiastically applauded as Bush & Gang have
erected an imperial presidency that emasculates the lawmaking and oversight
roles of Congress. The Bushites should not be ransacking congressional
offices, but that’s the least of their imperious intrusions. Until
Congress has the spunk to stand up for the rights and liberties of all,
don’t expect us to weep for Dennis.
This article appears in Jun 8-14, 2006.
