It was a busy news weekend and between the Olympics and the war in the Caucasus something nearly as profound got overlooked.  Last week a military jury down at Guantanamo returned a split verdict in the case of Salim Hamdan, acquitting him of the most serious charge.  The same jury, comprised entirely of active duty officers, then sentenced Osama bin Laden's former driver to sixty-six months of detention, knowing full well that he had already been imprisoned for sixty-one.  That means that there are five months remaining on his sentence, or roughly the same amount of time the Bush Administration has left in office.

That is probably not a coincidence.  Both the verdict and the sentence in the Hamdan trial were slaps to the face of the Administration, what's worse they were delivered by none other than American military officers, the very people the government depends on to fight its war on terror.  It's a perfect nightmare in the very first trial: Hamdan's guilty, but his sentence is going to expire soon, and he's not some wayward Australian white boy like David Hicks.  He's an Arab Muslim from Yemen.

As part of its ongoing "have your cake and eat it too" approach to legal affairs the Administration insists that even after Hamdan has finished his sentence he can still be held as an enemy combatant until the "war on terror" concludes hostilities.  Take a minute and let that sink in.

Here we have the first trial of a man held in the legal quicksand of Guantanamo.  This trial is supposed to be the first of many, not only of men currently in American custody but of other al-Qaeda operatives yet to be captured.  The Administration went to considerable time and trouble to set this up (it's been almost seven years in the making).  Yet upon the conclusion of the first trial of its new special system the government insists that the verdict and the sentence are basically meaningless; it plans to hold this man indefinitely regardless of the outcome.  The mind reels.

The obvious question then becomes, what the hell was the trial for?  (And, by extension, why did we bother to spend all the time and money to set up this military trial system in the first place?)  Is it all just some demented public relations scheme to make indefinite arbitrary detention, a concept specifically forbidden by the United States Constitution, seem like something other than what it really is?

There's also the issue of what is now to be done with this Salim Hamdan.  He is a man, a living breathing guy with hopes and dreams and fingernails and facial hair, and he has been tried in the manner explicitly endorsed by the United States Government.  His sentence will be complete sometime in January.  Back in June the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo have the right to file habeas corpus petitions in federal court.  Would that be his only means of redress should he complete his sentence and still be denied his release?  Who knows?  Given the amount of legal voodoo the Administration has so far sanctioned to keep its law-free prison operating one presumes they aren't going to let this little setback deter them.  If they want him, and it seems clear that they do if for no other reason than releasing him would set a bad precedent for keeping others indefinitely, they're going to keep him, and if they need to make up new laws or ignore some others to do it does anyone really think that's going to stop them?

Hamdan's fate now more or less explicitly rides on the outcome of the election in November.  That was the gauntlet thrown down by the jury.  The jurors aren't stupid; they knew when they made their decision that Bush the Younger's term and Hamdan's sentence will conclude concurrently.  What happens after that is up to the voters.  Presumably a McCain Administration would continue the current policy of indefinite detention, arbitrary power and logical contradiction.  We don't know what an Obama Administration would do, but we know it won't be a continuance.  NPR interviewed one of the Hamdan jurors, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel (via ACLU Blog):

Hamdan is still classified as an unlawful combatant by the Bush administration, and as such could be detained indefinitely in spite of his short sentence. Lt. Col. Patrick said that the jury would be extremely annoyed if that happened. After all, he said, what did we come down here for?

The magnitude of that rebuke - to the Administration from a serving officer - should not be obscured by Olympic flames and artillery shells.

Side Note:  Hamdan's trial went first for two reasons: sex appeal and confidence.  The sex appeal came from the fact that he was directly connected to Osama bin Laden, even if only for the mundane task of driving.  The confidence came from the fact that the events of his case were for the most part not in dispute.  The military felt sure that they could secure a conviction on all counts and look what happened.  What does this say about the other cases they're preparing to try?  I'd be willing to wager that most of the other cases are both weaker and less central to the 11 September attacks.  They put their best foot forward and fell flat on their face, in a forum where the rules are bent to their advantage no less.  It might be time to rethink the whole thing.

For an eight minute rundown of just how stupid, contradictory and downright absurd this whole thing is I highly recommend this ACLU mp3.

h/t to Hibernia Girl: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

That didn't take long.  Just a few weeks ago Bush the Younger was imperiously using an agreement with Iraq to bind his successor to his failed policies.  Now the Iraqi government has declared not once but twice that any agreement would have to have a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.  Clearly Nouri al-Maliki knows that, at least for now, he's the one with the leverage.  Whether or not Bush has realized that yet is an open question but for the moment it is irrelevant because both of them are negotiating under a ticking clock.  The current UN mandate for American forces in Iraq expires on December 31st of this year.  That is the date you'll see cited as the cause for these negotiations but the real reason is a date eight weeks prior, November 4th.

For the moment Maliki has the upper hand because if he doesn't want to deal with Bush he can simply wait four months and deal with the President-elect instead.  He may or may not get a better deal from the winning Senator than he would've gotten from Bush, but it is Bush who has to deal with Maliki, not the other way around.  Of course, as soon as there is a President-elect the negotiating table shifts in that man's favor because one way or another he's going to be around for four years.

It is, therefore, in both Bush's and Maliki's interests to conclude some kind of an agreement before November 4th; unfortunately for both of them they seem to want the same thing: control over how and when American involvement in Iraq ends.

First, let's take a moment to review each side's proposal so far.  The information we're working with here is, at best, accurate only in a skeletal way (it's in published, English-language reports after all) but it fits in with what we already know about each side.  The initial American proposal was basically Colonialism II: de facto permanent military bases, extraterritoriality for mercenaries, control of airspace below 30,000 feet (a.k.a. ground support altitudes), and, perhaps most insane, the freedom to act (shoot people, detain suspects, and blow things up) without Iraqi approval.  The Iraqi proposal, which by simple fact of being less insane will probably end up being a lot closer to any eventual agreement, is for unlimited military aid under the discretion of Iraqi officials until such time as the Iraqis deem it no longer necessary.

Maliki, who let's all remember is neither stupid nor an American puppet, wants the GIs around until such time as he is militarily and politically secure, then he can score big popularity points by kicking us out.  Bush wants the GIs bound permanently in Iraq because he believes our presence there gives us strategic leverage over the entire region.

The key political buzzword here is "timetable".  The existence of a "timetable" implies that the U.S. presence in Iraq is going to end, relatively soon.  Bush, and his would be successor John McCain, want American troops in Iraq long term.  The rational for that goes back almost two decades to the first Gulf War.  On 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait.  After that there was nothing but sand between the Iraqi tanks and most of the Saudi oil fields.  The numbers are a little hazy but as I recall at the time Iraq and Kuwait each had something like 10% of proven global oil reserves and Saudi Arabia was at 25%.  In August of 1990 there was a very real possibility that, had Saddam Hussein ordered his troops south, forty odd percent of all the world's oil reserves would be controlled by one man.  That his regime had been, up until 1 August 1990 nominally a friendly one counted for very little; that much oil in the hands of one government was a serious threat to the world economy and the United States of America.

Avoiding a repeat of that situation has more or less been US Government policy ever since.  After the Gulf War it took the form of American troops in Saudi Arabia (the nominal rational for the 11 September 2001 attacks was the presence of non-Muslim troops in Saudi Arabia, the location of Mecca and Medina).  With the Iraq invasion completed the US closed its bases in Saudi Arabia and began building them in Iraq, but the policy remained the same.  The US Government views the presence of American ground troops in the oil-rich portions of the Middle East as an absolute strategic necessity, hence the need for a long term presence in Iraq.

The Iraqi point of view is, not surprisingly, quite different.  They see no reason that the United States should have any kind of preferential treatment in the region.  To them we should be just another oil customer.  Maliki believes that his government will soon be able to administer the country without the help of American forces (he may or may not be correct about this) and once he can do that he has no incentive to allow American troops to remain or give us any kind of preferential treatment in terms of access to oil.  Thinking that he or his constituents will allow us to remain out of some kind of gratitude for removing Hussein is the height of naivete.

Nevertheless that seems to be the attitude of the Bush Administration.  The question is not what kind of deal can they get from Maliki, it's will Maliki allow them a face saving deal?  The only threat Bush can make is to unilaterally withdraw American support and allow Maliki's government to fall, but for his own domestic political reasons he cannot do that.  Of course, starting on November 5th there's going to be a new American government and Maliki loses a lot of his leverage.  McCain has promised to stay in Iraq, Obama has promised to leave.  Either one of them will come at any status of forces negotiates with their primary goal in mind.  If Maliki can put the screws to Bush and get what he wants he'll do that, if Bush proves intransigent he'll roll the dice with his successor.  But there's no way he makes a deal that's bad for the long term interests of Iraq with a man who will soon be little more than the most famous ranch hand in all of Texas.

Puppet.  There is a wonderful simplicity to that word, especially as it pertains to our sophomoric efforts at imperialism in Iraq.  It's a word which tells you everything you need to know: that there is a local government, headed by a local guy, but we're paying all the bills and doing most of the fighting.  Naturally we feel entitled to a say in how things are run, but like all the imperial powers that have gone before us our idea of how big our "say" should be is a lot more expansive than the locals'.

Nouri al-Maliki is an American puppet.  He was not the first choice but he was selected by the United States government.  The government he putatively leads is paid for by U.S. taxpayers and is based on a constitution which was drafted by Americans.  The walled compound in which his government primarily exists, the embarrassingly named Green Zone, is defended by American troops.  His position in the government, his very station in life, is dependent on Americans; in normal circumstances that might lead him to give us a great deal of deference, but these are not normal days.  Instead, in the last few days, he told our government to go fuck itself.

The key issue is an artfully named Status Of Forces Agreement, or SOFA.  "Sofa" is an absolutely fantastic term to use when inviting oneself over to somebody else's country.  Reportedly, the United States was asking for fifty-eight permanent military bases (oxymoronically they wouldn't be truly permanent, just permanently rented), extraterritoriality (which we'll get to in a moment), and the right to decide whether or not another country (e.g. the Islamic Republic of Iran) had attacked Iraq.  It was an offer that implied childlike irresponsibility on the part of the Iraqis and, not surprisingly, they balked.

As often as possible I try to think about the Iraq war from an Iraqi perspective.  As someone who has never been there, does not speak the native language, and has only the most cursory of understanding of their history I am inherently crippled on that score.  But try I do and in this case I got to wondering, why in the world would Maliki agree to any of this?  He isn't stupid; he knows that there's an election coming up in the US and that one way or another Bush the Younger is on his way out.  (He has his own election to worry about as well but it's on a much less rigid timeline.)  Why would he agree to anything that, for all practical purposes, will cease to operate around 11:30 pm Eastern Time on the fourth of November?

Patrick Cockburn, who is basically Our Man in Baghdad, first reported these idiotic negotiations.  Over at Hullabaloo, dday was justifiably thinking that this agreement was primarily a tool for Bush the Younger to bind his successor (whoever that may be) to a deep presence in Iraq by raising the political cost of withdrawal.  Instead, the Iraqis rejected our outrageous demands and Bush the Younger was once again humiliated, this time by a puppet government of his own choosing.  The ways in which this man has been shamed are almost uncountable.

Bush has said that he's hopeful the negotiations will restart but at the center of all this is a fact which can be camouflaged and distorted but never fully hidden: the American presence in Iraq is harmful and destructive for all involved.  Our demands in the negotiations for the status of forces agreement were merely a naked grasp for legitimacy. The welfare and well being of the Iraqis is barely considered.  Our demand for extraterritoriality, in essence immunity from Iraqi courts for American troops and mercenaries, gives away the whole lie.  The current Administration just wants to be in Iraq, it gives no thought to the human costs of being there and as a result is clueless enough to expect carte blanche.

There will almost certainly be some kind of an agreement, but it's going to be a lot different that what the Administration originally wanted.  Bush's leverage over Maliki, already at its lowest point, grows weaker as each new day brings the U.S. election closer.  Maliki knows that any agreement with Bush won't be worth the paper it's printed on in six months time.  He has no incentive to give away anything he doesn't want and he knows it.  Bush is trying to commit his successor to his policies in Iraq but he isn't going succeed in that effort any more than he's succeeded at anything else in that country.

Starting today Bush the Younger will spend the next five days traveling to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.  He'll also meet with the leaders of Afghanistan and Jordan.  No one seems to expect much of anything to come of the trip - not foreign policy experts, not pundits, not other world leaders - and the White House isn't doing much to make anyone change their minds.  There are no grand treaties to be signed; there are no stalemated negotiations which a President may be able to progress; there aren't even any newly elected leaders to congratulate.  The region is in terrible shape, far worse than it was when Bush the Younger took office, and the trip has no discernable purpose.

During this Administration the United States has seen its involvement all over the Middle East deepen and neither they nor us are better off for it.  Just for kicks let's take a quick look around the Middle East and see what's happened in the last eight years, shall we?

Afghanistan - When Bush the Younger took office the civil war that had gone on in Afghanistan more or less uninterrupted since the Soviet invasion in 1979 had reached a relative stalemate along long established ethnic lines.  The Taliban controlled most of the country and the Northern Alliance, a group of warlords aligned against the Taliban, had a small but relatively secure strip of the north.  After the 2001 attacks in America, a NATO led coalition, working with the Northern Alliance, deposed the Taliban.  It was hailed as a new dawn for a forgotten land.

The international community promised that Afghanistan would no longer be neglected.  It wasn't done out of sheer kindness though.  Failed states, areas where no government held sway, were suddenly seen as threats to the existing international order on account of the fact that rogue, non-state groups could use them as secure bases of operation.  Today, Hamid Karzai, the appointed and then elected leader of post-Taliban Afghanistan, is derisively referred to in the international community as the "Mayor of Kabul" because, get ready for it, much of Afghanistan is not under the control of any government.  Oh yeah, and the Taliban is still a potent force within the country and their leader, Mullah Omar, remains at large.

Egypt/Jordan/Saudi Arabia - Even in a post comprised largely of simplifications this one is particularly gross, but since I'd like to keep this to less than 5,000 words I'll just point out one thing.  These countries have pro-western autocratic governments which have largely put off their own reckoning with their natural instability because the United States needs them to continue on their present course, no matter the future consequences.

Iran - In 2001 Iran, a theocratic democracy, had re-elected a relatively reform minded President and had, with the exception of suspicions about complicity in the Khobar Towers attack, enjoyed a relatively peaceful run of relations with its neighbors and the rest of the world.

Today Iran has considerably more economic influence thanks to record oil prices and has strengthened its hand in Iraq thanks to an American led overthrow of its implacable enemy and his replacement with Shiites long friendly to Tehran.  The empty bluster which for so long has exclusively comprised our policy towards the Islamic Republic has allowed the government in Tehran to enjoy this newly enhanced international position while seeing its most hard line elements bolstered, its pro-Western reformers given a bad name, and a bombastic demagogue elected President.

In short, during the course of Bush the Younger's presidency the government of Iran has become less friendly and more powerful.  Bravo.

Iraq - This is, obviously, well covered ground, but it bears remembering that while Iraq was ruled by a murderous despot at the start of this Administration he was a weak murderous despot who was well contained and had, for more than a decade, respected the unwritten international rule that you're allowed to do whatever you want to your own people as long as you don't involve your neighbors.

Today the country is bogged down in a civil war that may end up tearing it apart, it is probably the most dangerous place on earth in terms of per capita violent deaths, it has spawned a refugee problem that burdens the entire region, and it has undergone violent multisided ethnic cleansing that will, when all is said and done, rank it right up there with Rwanda in 1994.  American troops are direct participants in the civil war, to dubious benefit, and the war will - conservatively - end up costing two trillion dollars.  Just a quick reminder, that's two million million dollars.

Israel/Palestine - Again this is largely well covered ground, and we've got to be fair to Bush the Younger by remembering that the situation wasn't exactly promising when he took office, the second Intifada was already four months old at the time.  He did not step into a situation where peace was at hand and blow it up.  However, in 2008 both sides are demonstrably further from their stated goals than they were in 2001.

Israel, whose stated goal is to be secure and at peace with its neighbors, is more vilified, both in the region and internationally, than it has likely ever been.  Bush the Younger's all but undisguised favoritism caused the Israeli government to get carried away with policies that have been disastrous.  These include, but are not limited to, the unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which has done nothing to improve the security situation; the bankrupting and crippling of the Palestinian Authority, which has resulted Hamas' rise to power through legitimate democratic elections; and the 2006 war in Lebanon which failed to achieve its purpose, degraded Israel's already low international reputation, and was positively catastrophic for the perception of Israeli military superiority.

The Palestinian's stated goal, a viable and internationally recognized state, is no closer than Israel's.  Thanks to the callousness are carelessness of the Bush Administration's policies the Palestinians are now not only required to bear tremendous humanitarian burdens, but they've also lost the ability to field a single government with the authority and legitimacy to negotiate credibly.  As if that weren't bad enough they are no longer even the most aggrieved people in the region.  That unfortunate title, and much of the attention that comes with it, has been diverted to the Iraqis by way of American fiat.

The Israelis and Palestinians continue, together and with the full support of the United States, along their path of mutually reinforced misery.

Lebanon - A state one trumpeted by the Bush Administration as a success story - ignoring the fact that the Syrian withdrawal had almost nothing to do with American actions - has continued along its bumptious course of occasional violence and non-stop instability.  It remains, as it has been since the Reagan Administration, almost completely impervious to American influence of any kind.

This is an incomplete picture and a simplification, but it's also fair and accurate as far as it goes.  While I could go on about the many other foreign policy fiascos of Bush the Younger it seemed only fair to limit myself to the countries and topics that will likely be on his agenda for his little trip.  No American President can or should be expected to solve all the problems of any region, much less one as chronically chaotic as the Middle East, but at the very least we ought to expect that on the whole things aren't worse at the end of an Administration than they were at the beginning.  Alas, for this President that is an inescapable conclusion.  He has taken a number of bad situations and made them worse, and while it is easy to dwell and focus on his preeminent failure in Iraq, it's worth remembering that there are plenty of others as well.

I have new hope, possibly unfounded, that the Democrats in charge of Congress are beginning to realize that not only do they possess real power, but that their main opponent is crippled by internal incompetence and staggering unpopularity. Passing veto bait domestic bills is useful on some level, showing the folks back home just how much you could get done with a Blue living at 1600 and all that, but it's largely pointless. Problems with our medical system, educational system and economy will still be with us a year from now. We've managed to postpone dealing with them so far, another dozen months or so isn't going to kill too many people. The Iraq War, though, is killing people right now and any rational prioritization of the work required to clean up the messes of Bush the Younger has to start with that. Getting into a serious knock down drag out budget fight with this man poses few real risks and offers almost incalculable rewards.

In that spirit, I present an open letter to our fearless leaders:

Dear Shitbags,

Quit fucking around.

Signed,

Everyone Else

Cathartic as that was it didn't strike quite the right tone. Let's try it again:

Dear Congress,

Running out the clock on this Administration, while certainly an appealing option, isn't a cost neutral strategy. The longer the mistakes of Bush the Younger are allowed to go uncorrected the more costly (in every way you can think of) they are going to be to fix. The man's approval rating hovers around thirty percent; Cholera is more popular than he is. Standing up to him is win-win. You will become more likeable by doing so and in the process you might manage to change things for the better.

Moreover, the minority who still like him are probably lost. Everything we've been though so far hasn't changed their minds; if they were going to stop liking this President they would have done so by now. At some point, one that we have likely already passed, it stops being about performance and simply becomes an issue of loyalty and/or stubbornness. They are beyond hope or redemption so there is little more you can do than to simply say, "Screw 'em."

That leaves the rest of us, the overwhelming majority, who don't approve of this wretched man or his foolish war. End the war and please us and we'll re-elect you to your cushy Washington jobs. We promise. Don't fear excoriation at the hands of press people and pundits, the American people want all the troops home within a year by a two to one margin. I don't mean to be telling tales out of class or anything, but we-the-voters count more than they-the-talkers do. We vote, donate and applaud, what more could any politician ask for?

Their oceans of spilled ink, uncountable hours of television and who knows how many trillions of colored pixels amount to nothing more than yesterday's news. We know what we want - the war to end, immediately if not sooner - and if you don't do it, we'll elect someone who will. Please forgive the cliché, but ordinary Americans, people who do not obsessively follow tracking polls, who do not wait with baited breath for the quarterly fund raising numbers, who do not know the names of national political reporters, will be casting the ballots. It is we who will have the final say.

Sincerely,

The Great Majority of the American People

P.S. If you want to indict, try and convict Dick Cheney while you're at it, we won't mind in the least.

As we enter this last year until Bush the Younger becomes a true lame duck, there really isn't much left to be said, or to do.  We appear to be in gridlock.  The President vetoes legislation, threatens to veto even more legislation, and whines about a Congress that isn't as pliant as it once was.  The Legislature has largely put a brake on new Executive mistakes but has been unable to correct those previously committed or much advance its own agenda.  They are at each other's throats with press conferences and sound bites, but neither has much power over the other and today is precisely one year until our next federal election.  Oh, how time flies.

Eight years ago - Bill Bradley and John McCain were fighting the good fight to try and keep both presidential nominations from going to unchallenged front runners.  There was a federal budget surplus and the economy was humming along so well that a book titled "Dow 36,000" was taken seriously by people who should've known better.  Bush the Younger had just burst onto the national scene that summer as the prohibitive Republican favorite.

Seven years ago - We were on the precipice of the Florida debacle in what turned out to be one of the most important elections in a long time.  Bush the Younger was making campaign stops where he'd raise three fingers in the air as a "W" shape.  That he'd once be caught driving drunk (and this man was a well known boozer) was the best the Democrats could do for an October surprise.

Six years ago - We were still raw from trauma and in the early stages of bombing Afghanistan up from the Stone Age.  Bush the Younger had never been so popular, Rudy Giuliani was thinking about staying on as mayor past the end of his term and the vaunted newspaper recount of the Florida ballots was quietly neutered and released.  Best not to question the president's legitimacy now, eh?

Five years ago - Democrats were running in fear as Bush and his acolytes beat the drums for war in Iraq.  We were quite certain that Saddam Hussein had massive weapons.  The very next day the Democrats took a beating and the Senate went back over to the Republicans.

Four years ago - Howard Dean was going to be the savior of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.  The hopes of the anti-war crowd were pinned on him and him alone, and conservatives cackled with glee at the idea of running against someone who would dare to publicly say that the war wasn't going well.

Three years ago - John Kerry had just conceded and it was widely assumed that Republican control of the government would last for the foreseeable future.  Bush the Younger had "political capital" and values had decided the election.  The Republican Party was licking its chops and sharpening its knives because there was nothing left in their way.  Social Security reform would be merely the first in a series of domestically policy dominos.

Two years ago - Harriet Miers' nomination for the Supreme Court had just gone down in flames and Samuel Alito had become a national figure overnight.  Bush was swooning from Katrina and the Miers fiasco and it was hard to believe that a man with his dismal approval ratings had been re-elected only a year before.  Social Security reform was long dead and there was very little talk of "political capital" anymore.

One year ago - The Auguries were pointed against the Republicans and the prophecy came true.  The Iraq War had finally, at long last, produced a tangible political result to go along with its consistently dismal poll numbers.  Rumsfeld resigned a few days later and the byline brigade waited, foolishly and with bated breath, for the Iraq Study Group to save us from Mr. Bush's war.

What a long, strange Administration it's been.

I don't follow Congress closely enough to accurately gauge the chances of the kiddie health care bill gaining enough votes in the House to override last week's veto.  I do hope it happens though.  I don't know if it will do any kids any good.  If it does, that's nice; if it doesn't, well what's one more government program?  For entertainment purposes though, a veto override would be pure saccharine.

Bush the Younger and his cadre of fanatics do not handle adversity well.  Their argumentative tactics, indeed their entire would view, is based on the conviction that they can do no wrong.  When something does go wrong, as so many things have, they are forced into amusing verbal gymnastics and mind bending leaps of logic.  It's high comedy.

One of the few bad things that hasn't yet happened to this Administration is a Congressional override of a veto.  It's virgin territory for the rightist press flaks, the professionally angry pundits, and the man himself.  Having Congress pass a bill over a veto is a rare instance of undeniable humiliation for a President.  It's not something that can be ignored or swept under the rug.

If Congress trumps him, it dims the aura of power that Bush has so assiduously cultivated.  This is, after all, a man accustomed to having his orders obeyed.  For six years he and his ilk have treated Congress like a foolish younger sibling, too naïve and raw to be trusted, an inconvenient and occasionally embarrassing tagalong.  Now these upstarts might pull rank on him.

Bush and his defenders will never admit that they're wrong about something, even if they lose a veto vote.  Instead they'll have to express frustration that the President is being ignored, certainty that he will be vindicated in time, and absolute denial that anything that goes wrong is his fault.  It's a tall order, even for experienced bullshit craftsmen.  What lunatic statements might they conjure to exonerate and justify themselves?  I really hope we get to find out.