Talking Back to CheneyBush

It always feels creepy to me when I agree with Henry Kissinger but sometimes it makes sense.

The idea for the bipartisan commission was rooted in a Jan. 6 Wall Street Journal op-ed by former secretaries of state Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz, former defense secretary William J. Perry and former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.). In the op-ed, they urged the Bush administration to reverse reliance on nuclear weapons as a step toward preventing proliferation. They also called for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking nuclear weapons off alert, reducing the number of nuclear forces and halting fissile-material production.

Well, Duh! You'd think that would be obvious but apparently not, if it takes a gaggle of retired officials (at least one of whom is notorious for his ruthlessness) to get attention. The attention is welcome and shows what at difference the November 2006 elections make in Washington.

A House Armed Services subcommittee voted yesterday to establish a year-long, bipartisan commission to reevaluate the U.S. nuclear strategic posture for the post-9/11 world. The subcommittee voted to pay for it by cutting $20 million from the Bush administration's $88 million request to complete design and cost studies for the first of a new generation of nuclear warheads.

Wow! Taking money from weapons production and using it to study the need for new weapons and their impact on proliferation. I see Congress awakening from a long slumber, not a little outraged by an arrogant executive, and learning how to use its authority to speak fully on major policy issues. Facing that Congress is a CheneyBush administration made careless and sloppy by six years of unfettered rule. They are still dangerous, still exercising authority, however incompetenly but I think their absolute rule is over. Americans will soon be looking into an abyss of greed, venality and mendacity, all done in our name. I look forward to America's wakening. Assuming that everyone doesn't just shrug their shoulders and switch channels.

At least for now, I can hope.