Constitutional Showdown

The White House and Congress are heading towards a constitutional showdown about those subpoenas over the fired U.S. Attorneys. Yesterday, the White House declared that it would invoke executive privilege rather than comply. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called it "Nixonesque stonewalling." I think we're heading towards more of these on the warrentless wiretapping subpoenas that were issued yesterday and the efforts of the National Archives to include the Vice President in its efforts to collect classified documents. Can the White House afford to go down this road with a crippled attorney general, Nixonesque popularity and Republican defections from its Iraq policy? Now, comes word that the immigration bill is dead, the central domestic policy effort of the administration. (Oh, the last central effort, Social Security reform went down too.) I still think there are ways for Bush to pull out of this tailspin and I suggested some last week but it looks less and less likely. The only political advantage to all of this is that by demonizing the Congressional Democrats he'll probably harden his base a bit, maybe leading to another point or two in his approval rating. Some consolation.