McCain and Wall Street

"The government was forced to commit $85 billion," McCain said in a statement. "These actions stem from failed regulation, reckless management and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America."

It's funny, McCain and the other Republicans (former McCain Financial Policy adviser Phil Gramm) passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. On the surface it was in my eyes truly a modernization act. It allowed Banks, Investment Banks, and Insurance firms to become one. Not the end of the world and not necessarily a bad thing at all.

This paved the way for Gramm's new bill, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Here we saw a bill that ensured unregulated creation and trading of Credit Default Swaps, Collateral Debt Obligations, Mortgage Backed Securities. And that's where we are today, a day after AIG was spared by the Treasury, Lehman brothers was allowed to collapse and the financial sector is in misery. With this bill, the Republicans allowed the financial sector to regulate themselves. When has self-regulation ever worked? When? Casino Culture indeed Senator McCain, your friend Mr. Gramm created this mess and you signed onto it in the 2001 Fiscal Year budget. Let's not forget all this time, McCain was the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Where was John McCain the last 8 years when all of this de-regulation was going on? I don't remember him speaking up or against any of the deregulatory bills. The fact that he has done an about face today, just shows you who we have running for President.

Notes from the RNC

I'm watching the RNC right now and writing down some notes that come to mind...

-Why is Fred Thompson so orange?
-What's going on with this random guy screaming "Yeaaaaa yeaaaa yeaaa!" every few seconds, he's kind of obnoxious, you can hear him over the speaker at the podium.
-Everyone keeps chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!"... I just don't get it.
-There are a lot of people there dressed like Tucker Carlson.
-Lieberman? Why hasn't he been kicked out of the Democratic Party yet?
-"Country First"... are they saying Obama doesn't put country first? What's first, ego? Isn't that the insinuation? What happened to running a respectful campaign.
-Wow. Did they just applaud Bill Clinton? WTF?
-I can't believe Lieberman just said that Obama voted against equipping troops in the field. That's such a ridiculous distortion of the truth. What a backstabber. So much for helping him "reach to the stars".
-"yes we will"? Can't they come up with their own original chant...
-That's a big flag they have on screen... and on everyone's lapel. Patriotism isn't about how many pieces of flair you have or how big your flag is. I most people in that room realize one day that Republican policies are not in their best interest.

will Fox News lean left?

At last glance, President Bush had the highest disapproval rating, 69%, of a U.S. president in the 70 history of the gallop poll. At was not always this low, in fact, after 9/11, Bush, was in fact one of the most popular presidents as the nation banded together in light of the terrorist attacks.

One organization that gained a lot of momentum following 9/11 and our run-up to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was Fox News, with its right leaning media coverage. Fox News made a living heralding the Bush administration, demonizing liberal elites, the far-left media conspiracy, painting war protesters as unpatriotic, etc. America ate it up, after all, there were terrorists running amuck and boy were we mad. Fox News is a business triumph any way you look at it, they are the number one rated cable news network and subsequently, the advertising dollars have rolled in, and the administration has been especially conciliatory towards Fox News, gracing them with exclusive interviews with President Bush and other members of the Executive Branch which have largely shut off access when it comes to other networks.

I am curious how Fox News will proceed in the coming years. As I mentioned before, President Bush is the most unpopular President in modern history, presidential candidate John McCain while being a Republican is still distrusted and hated by a significant portion of his own party, and Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton for that matter) seems well positioned to be our next President of the United States. Come 2009, the Executive Branch will most likely be run by a Democrat, the House and Senate will probably still have a Democratic majority, your average American thinks the Republican party is full of out-of-touch idiots, Republicans can't recognize their own party anymore, the economy is in a tailspin caused in my opinion by the deregulation of the housing and credit markets, and politics for the most part have made a complete 180 in favor of anyone who is not associated with the neo-conservatives.

I think with America growing increasingly disillusioned with the right wing, it is inevitable that viewership moves back towards left leaning/centrist MSNBC and CNN. You just don't make money by pursuing an opinion that few people embrace. Next year are people still going to want to hear from Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Nancy Grace, and Glenn Beck drumming us to increasing anti-immigrant fervor, made up facts, blaming Democrats, screaming at people for not supporting the troops, and boycotting companies for ridiculously tenuous ties? No, I don't think so. I think regular Americans will be able to tell that 8 years of majority Republican rule led to failed foreign policy, failed economic policy, uncompetitive wages, job loss, and soldiers being over stretched and under-provided for. I think it's pretty obvious to most people that 8 years of Bush didn't lead to a better America. McCain still seems like he's part of the Bush club.

Fox News is a business; it is still part of News Corporation. How is Fox News going to change and adapt to a shifting American political sentiment? When Scott McClellan comes out and writes a book basically saying, the Bush administration misled us into Iraq, the media didn't hold him responsible, outlets like Fox News facilitated the move to war, are people really going to believe it when Fox News analyst, Karl Rove, comes out and says "oh he's full of it" and the network and White House try to paint him as a disgruntled employee that wants to sell books? Fox News will have to change; otherwise ratings are going to drop like a rock. I think Rupert Murdoch knows this. I am curious what kind of content changes are going to be made, if punches will be pulled back, if zealous right wingers will be pulled out of prime time slots?

Recently, Rupert Murdoch had this to say about Obama and McCain:

[speaking about Obama]. "He's become a rock star. It's fantastic... he may not carry Florida because the Jewish people are suspicious of him and so are the Hispanics... but he'll probably win in Ohio and who knows... he'll probably win [the election]"... Personally I want to meet Obama, I want to know , is he going to walk the walk. If you read his education policy, it's just great, he's got a revolution there, the education system in this country is a total disgrace... He wants a break with the past, I do know that he is a highly intelligent man with a great record at Harvard, at the Law Review, and I just hope he's as good as he promises."

[Speaking about McCain]. " He has been in Congress a long time, and you have to make a lot of compromises... So what's he really stand for?... He's a patriot, he's a friend of mine, he's a decent guy but he's unpredictable. He doesn't know much about the economy, and I say this sympathetically, I think he has a lot of problems."

Murdoch seems to be jumping on to the Obama band wagon, We'll have to wait and see if he directs Fox News to follow in step.

Absolutely stupid

I maintain that the present-day Republican Party is one of the most awful, selfish, and callous organizations I have ever seen in my life, but there is a reason why I maintain 'independent' status on my voter registration card. As I wrote about in my last post, Democrats continue to get issues wrong, it's like they are not thinking.

As I do every night, I fire up teh internets and goto www.Huffingtonpost.com for some left wing news. The big headline is "Romney Caught Employing Illegal Immigrants, it's pretty obvious, at least to me, that this is pretty stupid; the headline that is and not Romney. What exactly has Romney done? He hired a lawn care service, said lawn care service had illegal immigrants working for him and the media (at least the Huffington Post) chose to jump on it in a big GOTCHA! moment. How are we supposed to make progress on illegal immigration when we are attacking politicians for things like this?

It is ironic that most left wing media sites would and have been completely opposed to the idea of stereotyping people by race/skin color and asking workers/neighbors for immigration papers. What are we, the Gestapo? Of course, it's completely not okay to assume that someone is an illegal immigrant because they are working for a lawn care service and look Mexican; that's not okay. But when we start to find things to embarrass a presidential front-runner about, it all of a sudden becomes no holds barred at the expense of the people that the left wing are trying to protect. How was Romney supposed to know that the lawn care service hired illegal immigrants? After it was brought to his attention that such hiring practices occurred, he brought it to their attention, how was he supposed to know that there were no more illegal immigrants working for the company and thus at his house? The expectation for him to be cognizant of these kinds of things is absolutely absurd. Can I guess who is an illegal immigrant and who isn't? No, and that's the way it should be. Let's keep the GOP out of the White House, but not like this, HuffPo should be ashamed.

Even the Democrats Don't Get It.

There is a reason why my voter registration card lists me as an 'independent' and not a 'Democrat'. Most of the time, I would associate myself with the Democrats, I would consider myself socially progressive, I would say that I'm a liberal, but... there are times when I listen to the Democrats and I wonder how they just don't get the issue at hand.

I'm watching the CNN debate and they were discussing what the future President of the United States should do about trade with China given that there has been an uproar about unsafe products coming out of China. Everyone is talking about enforcing the WTO law and shut off trade with China, they are talking about how bad China is this, and how bad China is that, is that the real heart of the issue? I think they are missing it.

At my workplace, we make consumer electronics. No they aren't immediately threatening products like a medical device, but they still need to be safe. The products need to be lead-free, they need to not explode in your hand, in short, we test them extensively to make sure they don't hurt people. At the same time, we manufacture things in China, like everyone knows, manufacturing at places like Foxconn just makes financial sense, they do it fast and they do it well. If something went wrong, the attention I think is on us, not on China. It is our responsibility to make sure that everything is defined to a T. This includes giving them materials so that we know the resistors and capacitors are in fact Pb Free/RoHS compliant, that the paint we use has no lead in it, it is our job to make sure that things are so explicitly defined that no shortcuts can be taken. It is ridiculous in my opinion to not do these things and then turn around and plead ignorance when something bad happens.

There were very few people on the debate stage that identified the problem, that we should be checking what China exports to us. But they are going about this incorrectly, they want to set up a foreign FDA/watchdog type arm of the US government to inspect exports. Why? This is a complete waste of money. This is one of those things that is very Republican in a way (although I haven't heard any of the Republican candidates even bring this up), we live in a capitalist system, we keep preaching how market forces drive things; market forces should drive safety.

It should be up to each individual company to define everything that goes into the product, to test a sample of the products before they are exported and sold into the American marketplace. I find myself in disbelief when we are blaming China for what happened. Even Mattel apologized to the Chinese government and Chinese people about the lead in the paint ordeal. It's not for the most part, China's fault. If Mattel didn't define what goes in the paint, if they aren't testing the products for lead, if they aren't the first line of defense, they should be held criminally liable. We don't need a government organization to check this kind of stuff, there is no way that a government organization can have the expertise to know exactly what safety concerns they should be looking for. It needs to be up to the experts, it needs to be up to the corporation designing the goods. What's so hard about this? We need to stop being so afraid of holding American corporations liable and scapegoating China. We manufacture in China because it's cheap, and we should understand that you get what you pay for. If you as a company find that it is no longer financially beneficial to build in China because of all the safeguards you need to implement, don't build there!

Let's stop blaming China for things that we should be responsible for. Now alternatively, if we do everything we can to be explicit about how they are to manufacture things, how to be safe, and things still go wrong, then and only then should we be making a public issue about it. Then and only then should we be going after Chinese manufacturing. We need to start being really on the ball about this issue, it is inevitable in my opinion that as profits begin to grow in China, Chinese business owners are going to start realizing that cutting corners can mean more money in the pocket. That's what we need to be watching out for, but first and foremost we should be doing our due diligence and making sure we take all the precautions necessary. As you can read in the news, due diligence is what has been lacking in almost every one of these public scandals.

Coulter, why bother?

[Talking about Ted Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act]
"One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population."- Ann Coulter

Why is this woman still given a forum to speak? More newspapers need to follow suit and drop her from their opinion columns, it is not even funny anymore how racist, xenophobic, and absurd her beliefs are. "one may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been". Ha. That's a good one.

A Signal For The Death Of The Two Party System?

For my entire life American politics has been dominated by the two party system. It is broken. The only thing that having two political powerhouses has done is create an artificial classification of citizens as either conservatives or liberals. These terms are not representative of beliefs or a view of the future, they are mud-slinging labels that fuel the fire of their respective voting base.

Conservatives are cold hearted, money loving, un-progressive stick in the muds. Liberals are tree hugging hippie peaceniks that don't understand market economics or the military.

In reality, the conservative/liberal labels probably accurately describe 1% of the population.

The reign of George W. Bush has only made the situation in Washington worse. If you were not lock step with the Bush administration you were cast aside and excluded from the election dominance machine that is Karl Rove. If you were not following in the footsteps of Pelosi and Reid, you were acting detrimentally to the overarching goal of defeating Bush. Now that George II is reaching the finale of his second term, those who would not speak out against the administration and their peers, are coming out of the woodwork. It is a good sign that perhaps Washington isn't secretly controlled by a cabal that identifies political candidates via a tap on the shoulder from Skull & Bones, and candidates have the ability to think freely.

Chuck Hagel has publicly stated (he has for a long time now), "I am not happy with the Republican Party today... It's been hijacked by a group of single-minded almost isolationists, insulationists, power-projectors." For most of us, this has been obvious for a long time. If you were actually a traditional "conservative", you must have been shitting a brick watching the Bush administration freely spend, drive the economy into a nosediving level of debt, and grow the government and its special interest attachments to sizes that would have made President Reagan squirm. How could anyone possibly be happy with the modern Republican Party?

The possibility of a Hagel-Bloomberg independent ticket is intriguing, especially with New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, on the ticket. While people herald Rudi Giuliani as the hero of 9/11 and the cleaner-upper of NYC, in post 9/11 times, he can only be seen in my eyes as a political opportunist and one trick pony; I can't think of anyone who has ridden the 9/11 card so hard, not even George W. Bush mentions it with Giuliani's frequency. Given Bloomberg's progressive stance on social issues and his guidance over NYC, I would vote for him in a heart beat.

Historically, people like Ralph Nader have been longshots, emphasis on the "long". Are there other independent Dark Horses, strong ones, electable ones? So far we have the specters of Hagel, Bloomberg, and perhaps even Al Gore. America should monitor Gore's weight, should he lose enough to bring him back to non-fat ass status, consider him a serious candidate for 2008.

Do They Actually Care?

The Democrats are now in control of the U.S. House and Senate, even with the Republican majority ousted I still can't tell if politicians actually care about what is happening to the American public. Speaking on the recent veto of the Democrat's funding proposal for Iraq by President Bush, Senator Harry Reid was adamant that Republicans, Democrats, and yes, the Bush administration would work together and hopefully they'd have a solution before Memorial Day.

I heard this on my way home from work while listening to NPR. This announcement came during the same week where I have been working 7:30 AM to ~ 9 PM all week long. When something happens at work, when I have responsibilities to take care of something, you just suck it up and put in the time. Americans do this every day, some may work two or more jobs, some work the worst of the worst jobs to provide for their family, and they do it because they have to do it. For once I'd like to see a similar effort from politicians. From the laziest and least working 109th Congress to the new and improved "100 hour plan" 110th Congress, what's the difference? If the Democrats were serious about withdrawing our troops from Iraq, they should hunker down, put their heads together and begin serious negotiations and proposals immediately. Memorial Day is more than three weeks away, while they are engaging in their political dance of posturing and expedience, men and women are dying.

Chris Shays spoke out against the Iraqi government going off on vacation,"If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight — that would be the outrage of outrages," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn. On the same side of the coin, a solution needs to be proposed now. If withdrawal is the serious conclusion of months of developing the spending bill, they should resubmit it with no changes. The politicians take forever to come to any sort of usable consensus, the Bush administration led us into a deadly Catch-22 in Iraq, and all the while blood continues to spill; the future of Iraq seems bleak.

2008 Presidential Race

The most provocative 2008 Presidential Candidate stand-off that no-one is talking about... yet: Al Gore vs. Jeb Bush. It would be incredible.

Republicans During Kosovo

From the years 1993 to 2001, President Bill Clinton worked alongside four different Congresses; the 103^rd, 104^th, 105^th, and finally the 106^th. During three out of four congresses, both the House and the Senate were presided over by a Republican majority. It is interesting to examine how a Republican majority Congress worked/fought against a President of the other party, especially during war time and on issues of the Constitution and the War Powers Act of 1973. It is in my opinion, a good window of time to examine the failure (56-34 with 17 Republicans joining the Democrats) of today’s non-binding measure which sought to rebuke President George W. Bush’s plan of escalating the number of troops deployed in Iraq with a surge of 21,500 combat and support troops.

Article I- Section 8 of the United States Constitution provides that while the President is the Commander in Chief of military forces when called upon to do so, the Congress retains the power to:

• To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
• To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
• To provide and maintain a navy;
• To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
• To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

In order to understand how the balance of power is struck throughout the course of a war, we must look at Article I in conjunction with the War Powers Act which requires the President to gain the approval of Congress before the commencement of any sort of hostile acts. This Act, whose legality has never been formally challenged through the Supreme Court, gives the Congress a set of teeth, as declaring war can be interpreted as a formality that does not give Congress a role in actually authorizing military action. Congress can authorize a war, but can it end one? Congress can end a conflict if war has not been formally declared within 60 days conflict. However once it authorizes a war, as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq, it relinquishes its war making power to the President. This however does not give him the authority to conduct a war on Iran, unless Alberto Gonzalez somehow successfully makes the argument that in the “War on Terror”, the “terror” aspect is so far reaching that the President can make war with whomever he so pleases. I find that to be unlikely.

In 1992, the US as well as NATO were convinced that it was time to take action against Bosnia. The Senate and House, although controlled by the Democrats passed the multilateral authorization of force by a strong ~94% agreement. Eventually in 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed and peace was agreed upon by the warring parties in Bosnia and NATO.

It was during this time that Democrats and President Clinton began to be heavily criticized by some in the military and by the Republicans. In a 1996 editorial, John T. Correll, Editor in Chief of the Air Force Magazine, blasted Clinton for not observing the Weinberger Doctrine –

“In 1984, Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger proposed six tests to determine whether US forces should be sent into combat: Is a vital national interest at stake? Will we commit sufficient resources to win? Will we sustain the commitment? Are the objectives clearly defined? Is there reasonable expectation that the public and Congress will support the operation? Have we exhausted our other options?

…the Clinton Administration, which came to office imbued with the idea that the instrument of military power could be and should be applied with fewer restrictions. President Clinton's first Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, said that under the Weinberger rules, the armed forces would be employed "only very, very rarely" and that "people may not be willing to pay $250 billion or even $200 billion a year for a military that is not very useful."

To my knowledge Correll, even as far as 2003 (when he discontinued his role at the Air Force Magazine), supported the efforts that the Bush administration had made in Iraq and Afghanistan. To some degree, retrospectively I would agree, Bush along with Rumsfeld transformed the military to better fight the evolving threats arising from Middle East combat. However, given our situation in Iraq and Afghanistan today, it being 2007, I would be curious to see if Correll has given his thoughts any reconsideration. His laudatory attitude towards Bush was largely based on rhetoric and not action.

[Correll commenting on G.W. Bush] “He promised to review the open-ended deployments: “Sending our military on vague, aimless, and endless deployments is the swift solvent of morale. ... I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our allies to take a broader role. We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing warring parties. This is not our strength or our calling.””

Reflecting from 2007, Bush's words ring hollow as the criticisms he reserved for Clinton are those that he is also facing now. As we can see, Bush was heavily critical of the way Bosnia and Kosovo were handled. Many individuals like Bush and Correll threw up their arms, finger pointing that Clinton had committed our troops to world policing activities and used US military power too liberally. As the Congressional Democrats and Clinton pursued keeping troops in Bosnia to ensure success during peace negotiations, Republicans were intent on ending our nation’s activity in Bosnia.

The Republican Congress sought the following measures:

11/9/1995- H.R. 2606
Title: To prohibit the use of funds appropriated to the Department of Defense from being used for the deployment on the ground of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of any peacekeeping operation, or as part of any implementation force, unless funds for such deployment are specifically appropriated by law.
[Passed 243-171; 214 “AYES” votes were by the Republicans; failed in Senate 22-77]

12/13/1995-H.Res 302
Title: Relating to the deployment of United States Armed Forces in and around the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina to enforce the peace agreement between the parties to the conflict in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Reiterates serious concerns and opposition to the President's policy that results in the deployment of 20,000 members of the U.S. armed forces on the ground in the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Calls for: (1) the President and the Secretary of Defense to rely on the judgment of, and ensure the provision of appropriate resources and support to, the commander of the U.S. armed forces that are deployed in and around the territory of the Republic in all matters affecting the safety, support, and well-being of such forces; and (2) the U.S. Government to be impartial and evenhanded with all parties to the conflict as necessary to assure the safety and protection of such forces.
[Passed 287-141; 221 “Yeas” votes were by the Republicans]

12/13/1995- H.Res.304
Title: Providing for debate and for consideration of three measures relating to the deployment of United States Armed Forces in and around the territory of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
[Passed: 357-70; Majority opinion of both parties]

12/13/1995- H.R. 2770
Title: To prohibit Federal funds from being used for the deployment on the ground of United States Armed Forces in the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of any peacekeeping operation, or as part of any implementation force.
[Defeated 210-218; 190 “YEAS” votes were by the Republicans]

This piece of legislation was submitted by D-Rep. Lee Hamilton

12/14/1995- H.R. 306

Title: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding the deployment of United States Armed Forces to Bosnia.
Supports the men and women of the U.S. armed forces who are carrying out their mission in support of peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina with professional excellence, dedicated patriotism, and exemplary bravery.
[Defeated 190-237; 219 “NAYS” votes were by the Republicans]

With this Congressional record I think it is obvious that the criticism being endured by the Democrats concerning the non-binding resolution is without any merit whatsoever. Democrats are being accused of hurting the morale of our troops by pushing this resolution, obviously when Lee Hamilton presented the “We support our troops” legislation in 1995, the vote by the Republican majority was a resounding “NO”. Alongside of this lack of support for American troops assisting in peace keeping along with NATO, the Republicans voted repeatedly to cease the funding of activity in Bosnia. At the time, did that not embolden our enemies and show them that a peace agreement would not be supported by force from America? The inconsistency is stunning, a turn around in party politics that was only a little more than a decade ago.

This lack of support for the President in foreign policy only continued into 1999 when America again returned to the area for the Kosovo War. Again, the Congress authorized military action, agreeing to use of “air operations and missile strikes”. There was no opposition to Clinton from the Republican majority. And although the Senate had agreed to Senator Biden’s resolution authorizing air attacks in Yugoslavia and had also overwhelming agreed to Senator McCain’s resolution authorizing Clinton the use of “all necessary force and other means, in concert with U.S. allies, to accomplish U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) objectives in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)”, the Republican House still fought the legality of the war. This is not to say that I think that Clinton’s war was legal, in fact I would side with the Republicans and say it was pursuant with the War Powers Act to end U.S. involvement. The end result was still to authorize an extension to bombing in Yugoslavia, but to this day, Clinton critics argue that he went too far in pursuing “victory” and defending the Albanians.

The Republicans made many efforts to censure President Clinton on his handling of and engaging the United States military in the Kosovo War. They passed resolutions to debate the legality of war, they sought to withhold funds for the war and peacekeeping efforts, they even voted to not “support the troops” in what was for the most part a piece of fluff legislation. It is surprising now that the Republicans are acting so fiercely against Democrats taking action against President Bush and the Iraq War. During the Clinton Administration, there were not questions of how legislation was hurting the morale of the troops, there were however repeated questions about the Presidential powers invoked by Clinton in war making; questions that were absolutely legitimate. The current Republicans in Congress seem to have entirely given up their job of oversight of Presidential power; giving their responsibility in a system of checks and balances directly to President Bush without any after thought.