It’s Time For The President To Stand Up To The Democrats

It looks like president Bush is holding his ground on the Alberto Gonzalez un-controversy. I hope he continues to do so. For too long he has just stood back and let the Democrats attack him on every issue that came along. They have been attacking him for so long with no counter attack that they turned the people against him.

Looking back at the Clinton administration, it seems as though president Clinton was on television every day defending himself, turning the tables on the Republicans. He even wears his impeachment as a badge of honor. Clinton seems to have won the public relations battle.

President Bush doesn’t have the articulation skill that Clinton had, perhaps that is why he doesn’t get in front of the cameras every day and fight back at the Democrats. The war on terror is the one issue he hasn’t backed down on, I wish he had shown the same resolve on all the other issues. And I hope he shows the same resolve for Alberto Gonzalez. If the president gives them Gozalez’s scalp it will just embolden them to go after the next one. They will not be happy until they take down his whole presidency.

From nypost.com:

 No More Mr Nice Prez

March 22, 2007 — President Bush tried to meet Congress halfway on that trumped-up federal prosecutor nonsense – and got his hand slapped away.

No surprise.

So why did he even bother?

On Tuesday, the president decided to let Congress look at executive-branch internal documents regarding personnel practice – an almost unheard of gesture.

All he asked was that lawmakers not issue subpoenas and create a media spectacle over the matter.

But less than 24 hours later, a House panel nonetheless authorized subpoenas for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, ex-Counsel Harriet Miers and other key Bush aides.

So much for the nice-guy route.

If the subpoenas are actually issued, the White House needs to fight them tooth-and-nail – for the president surely holds the constitutional high ground.

It is now clear that the Democratic Congress intends to give Bush no peace for the remainder of his term.

No peace on the war.

No peace domestically.

No peace whatsoever.

Bush needn’t play along – not for a minute. And he shouldn’t.

He’s been offering olive branches left and right, and failing to defend what he believes is right.

He’d fallen down on this even before the latest flap over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ handling of the ouster of eight federal prosecutors – a case where there’s never been a shred of evidence of a scandal.

Bush has full discretion to remove federal prosecutors for any reason. Indeed, his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys with his own picks – as he had every right to do.

The president also has the right to keep internal White House discussions private. That frees aides to be fully candid with him. Bush’s offer to let Congress peek in on parts of those discussions was already a huge – and absolutely unwarranted – gesture toward political détente.

In other cases, he has agreed to bipartisan panels (like the 9/11 Commission) and a special prosecutor (in the probe of the Valerie Plame leak) that have only emboldened his enemies.

(Plame prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, for example, could not substantiate any crime in the commission of that leak, but nonetheless found an administration aide – Scooter Libby – to prosecute for “lying” about the non-crime.)

In making his offer Tuesday, Bush did show a modicum of resolve: “We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants,” he said. “It will be regrettable if they [Congress] choose to head down the partisan road of issuing subpoenas and demanding show trials.”

And he stood by his embattled AG, Gonzales, whose scalp the Dems covet.

Good for Dubya.

Now he needs to show more moxie.

Why not go to war with Congress?

Sure, Bush’s approval rating is just 35 percent in the latest Gallup poll. But Congress’ rating is even worse – 28 percent. Why shouldn’t Bush move to take advantage of that?

Even though the hostile, anti-Bush press is sure to go to town on him for doing so.

Indeed, he has little choice.

The press is already in full attack-dog mode, and long has been. That’s going to get worse, no matter what.

Apart from the survival of his own administration, Bush has a duty to fight to preserve the prerogatives of the executive as an institution for future presidents – Republican or Democrat.

He also has a duty to fellow GOPers, particularly those seeking federal offices in ’08, to show that Republicans aren’t partisan pushovers – and actually lead well.

But – most of all – he has an obligation to stand up and do the job he was elected to do as he sees fit.

He owes it to Americans to do the best job he can.

It’s long past time for Bush to step up.

There’s a war on, Mr. President – not just with terrorists, but Democrats, too.

Fight it that way.