Talk about torturing yourself to protect your ideology and allies!

Specifically for the auto companies, if you want to blame anyone, blame the Administration that made the deal.

On the broader TARP process, it was an agreement between the Administration and Congress. If you want to blame anyone there, blame Washington. The truth is that the power-players there were in it together.

I think this is, partially, due to our changing media. Cable TV and talk radio have become biased cheerleaders. They center their efforts on the President. There are too many Congressmen and Senators to turn them into real celebrities, though McCain came close. While I regularly rail against Congress on my own little blog, I do think the odds are stacked against them in a battle with the Executive branch.

Steve

No, it's abrogation of responsibility. The Congress is properly criticized for this not the executive.

except for the last part about the executive not being criticized. While the executive always wants to expand his powers (it is human nature), does that make it right? No. Power corrupts, and Presidents need to be reminded of this fact.

Which is all the more reason to criticize congress vociferously and forcefully for abrogating their responsibilities, and thereby reminding the executive of the limits of his power.

All that said, I hold out no hope for the near future.

this may be my youthful naivete showing, but would repealing mccain-feingold have any positive effect on creating a serious third party challenger? a lot has changed in the business of disseminating information since 2002 that would seem to be perfect for allowing an unconventional political actor to challenge and shake up the status quo.

Wait a minute Dave, now you are for the bailout?

No, I've always been against the bailout and continue to be against it. I just think that Congress deserves most of the blame.

Our Constitution is written in such a way that Congress has most of the power and, unfortunately, in the modern day in which we've abandoned the idea of government by enumerated powers is in fact all-powerful.

Whenever our government does something you don't like, don't blame the president. It's nearly always the Congress's fault.

(If you are against the bailout there's no way you can make the case that no bailout from Congress is worse than a bailout from Congress! All the President needed to do at that point was say no.)

That said I'm not sure the "sunk costs" argument is a bad one. Congress gave the Administration $700B to spread around and "save" the economy. That horse is gone with little oversight.

It's not usurpation when the Congress delegates the power.

No, it's abrogation of responsibility. The Congress is properly criticized for this not the executive.

It's not usurpation when the Congress delegates the power.

In the upcoming congress there's no doubt the Democrats have a governing majority although they are not going to get to sixy in the senate. There are at least 10 Republican senators who through a mixture of sentiment and electoral fears for 2010 are going to vote with the Democrats on most substantive issues. Obama has also made an inspired group of cabinet and white house picks who by and large have the respect of moderate and pragmatic Republicans in congress. This brings us to the Republican rump of very conservative members of congress. Judging by reaction to the car rescue bill they have clearly decided to play a noisy if ineffective spoiler role. On the whole this is probably going to do Obama and his agenda much good and the Republican party much harm. Since Obama has clearly engendered much goodwill because of the discipline and order of his transition, and polls show about two thirds of the country agrees with his agenda, blocking it by a series of agressive and extreme sounding tactics is going to be suicidal but clearly a faction in the GOP has decided that this is what they want to do.

Washington doesn't "like" the auto bailout, but somehow still "needs" it. Easy solution, get the lame duck to do it.

But it very much matters how things are done and this is yet another in a long line of power grabs by this administration along with abdications by the Congress (under both Dem and Rep leadership, I would note). This is not a good thing.