Forgive me for addressing old news, but I am relieved to find
I wasn't the only one deeply disturbed by the Senate's effort to vote "no confidence" in the Attorney General. I'm no great lover of the AG, but why did it not bother anyone that there is
no such thing as a no-confidence vote in the American system of government? What we do have is a censure vote. Paul Greenberg:
The problem with the Senate is that it seems to have confused itself with a European parliament. There is no shortage of paeans to the Constitution of the United States in senatorial speeches, but any senators who think it contains a provision for a vote of no confidence might need to study it some more. Some senators seem to think it's their confidence in a Cabinet officer -- or lack of it -- that should determine whether he continues to serve. They are, to put it mildly, dead wrong.
And this even though a recurring line in The West Wing was
I serve at the pleasure of the President.
Though the no-confidence vote was meaningless in itself (and failed), perhaps it was a portent of something else:
the Senate is inviting a constitutional confrontation with the executive branch by issuing subpoenas for former White House officials like presidential counsel Harriet Miers and political director Sara Taylor -- the kind of subpoenas a long list of presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Harry Truman have stoutly resisted. And for good reason. For the power to subpoena is the power to destroy, and once the executive branch submits to such inquisitions, its independence is compromised. It becomes answerable to the legislative branch, which is not how America's system is supposed to work -- as opposed to a parliamentary system.
It's not only SCOTUS that's capable of appropriating foreign law inappropriately.
