How would a patriot act?

Where's the Presidents "straight up or down vote" rhetoric now?

Did you know that the President just fired 7 Deputy US Attorneys, in districts around the country; not because they weren't doing their jobs, or because they were corrupt, but because they didn't share Albert Gonzalez' radical ideology? This crass political maneuver is a last ditch effort to retain influence over law enforcement. The President's desire for political due process has gone out the window after the "whupping" the Republicans were delivered in the mid term elections.

Last year, while comfortably in the majority, the President spoke often of nominees for federal positions deserving "a straight up or down vote." Now, knowing he's unable to continue to foist his radical ideology on us, he's crassly manipulating the law and the political process to avoid an up or down vote on his nominees.

"In March 2006, President Bush signed the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. Included in that bill was a provision allowing interim U.S. attorneys appointed by the president to serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation." - Radley Balko, quoted in Fox News.

This means that his seven new appointees can serve the rest of Bush's term of office, with no "up or down vote" and in defiance of the constitutional protections against the potential abuses of the executive branch.

This Rovian maneuver clearly illustrates the thinking of the radicals who've hijacked the Republican party: to wit, "if we can't win fair and square we'll just stack the deck."

Having been given a drubbing in the "straight up or down vote" arena, it seems the President has lost his taste for democracy...