Now is the Time for All Good Men to Come to the Aid of Their Constitution

I'm old enough to remember Watergate so I hope you'll forgive me for being somewhat nostalgic for the era when Senators like Howard Baker (R-Tenn) would, in the end, put upholding the Constitution ahead of short-term political electioneering. Don't get me wrong, Baker is no personal hero but according to Wikipedia..

He is famous for having asked aloud, "What did the President know and when did he know it?", a question given him to ask by his counsel and former campaign manager, future U.S. Senator Fred Thompson.

A little history. Quoting Watergate Revisited By Richard J. McGowan

The Republican minority was led by Tennessee’s Howard Baker, the ambitious son-in-law of the powerful Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen. Baker, who maintained a close, personal relationship with the president, was the obvious White House plant on the rudderless committee. Baker was a “finalist” in Nixon’s original vice presidential sweepstakes, which went to Spiro Agnew. Later, Baker rejected Nixon’s offer of a seat on the Supreme Court following the rejections of Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. and G. Harrold Carswell.

I'm hoping that if the evidence shows that this administration violated the law, that there will be Republicans who will put their oath of office to the Constitution above the short-term fallout that may befall their political party. Remember that Watergate was not the death knell for the GOP.

I think Glenn Greenwald summed it up well in his recent blog posting.

Whatever else one might want to say about this administration, it is simply indisputable that the theories of executive power it has adopted are radical, extremist and extraordinary; the policies adopted pursuant to those theories -- including the efforts to intimidate the media, stifle dissent, and prevent disclosure of its conduct -- are wholly alien to our most basic political values and traditions; and the entire approach to governing the country is unlike anything we have seen for a very long time, if ever.

Regardless of whether one thinks those theories and policies are justifiable, there is simply no question that allowing them to fester and become legitimized and institutionalized -- and we are well on our way to that destination -- will change our country in fundamental and likely irreversible ways. The changes will be not just to our laws and system of government but to our national character.

The absolute worst and most inexcusable thing is for that to happen without Americans even having a debate about those issues, really without even being aware that these things are occurring. But outside of the blogosphere, we haven't had that discussion -- at all -- because the media, for multiple reasons, just doesn't report it, pundits don't discuss it, very few people with any real public voice outside of the blogosphere have explained and opined about the fact that all of these scandals stem from a common source: the President's expressly stated belief that he has the power to act without restraints and outside of the law, literally.

Well said.