Astonishing? What’s To Astonish?

This morning the New York Times says, “It is astonishing that President Bush would even think of vetoing” the energy bill that may come up for a vote in the Senate today. It’s not in the least astonishing. It would be astonishing if the Prez didn't veto the bill. The deluded and clinically insane President of the United States vetoes bills because he can. It’s a game he likes to play because he can win. Not only can he win, the game has been rigged so that the odds are in his favor. And those who rigged the game are those who put a deluded and clinically insane man in the White House. That is to say, the Bush administration, the neocons and the Republicans in Congress gave a crazy fascist the power to act unilaterally and without conscience. Now if the NYT editorial (“A Shameful Presidential Threat”) had said it’s astonishing that the Senate’s Republicans are so corrupt, short-sighted and greedy that they may not override the president’s veto out of hand, that is true. To quote the Times again, the editorial says, “By almost any measure, it is the most important energy bill that Congress has entertained in many years... In a statement Tuesday, however, the White House demanded that the bill be amended to make the industry-friendly Transportation Department solely responsible for regulating fuel economy as well as carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles...This would directly reverse the Supreme Court’s historic decision in April declaring that greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the meaning of the Clean Air Act and giving the Environmental Protection Agency the power to regulate them. It would also have the effect of stripping California and other states of the power to impose their own automobile emissions standards... But for the White House to advance industry’s cause at the 11th hour of the debate over a breakthrough energy bill is inexcusable.” Inexcusable, perhaps, but it is not astonishing because a presidential veto is to be expected. However, if the Senate does not override this veto threatened by an insane President, then that would not only be reprehensible, dishonorable, disgraceful and inexcusable, it would be criminal.