I really don't get Dahlia. Her observations about Taylor's bumbling testimony, rife with contradictions about the very notion of executive privilege, is right on.

Anyone who watched even small excerpts of the testimony could easily conclude, as Sheldon Whitehouse did, that this entire claim of executive privilege is "ludicrous and extreme."

The complete and total failure of the mainstream media to press this point further is one thing. For Dahlia to conclude, after an otherwise fine article, though, that "[t]he real truth is that Democrats would have been on safer political ground if they'd asked absolutely nothing," is another.

I am completely baffled. Senate Democrats completely obliterated the flimsy claim of executive privilege, yet Dahlia concludes that this was politically unwise.

We have "Taylor the clam," as the Washington Post called her, pledging fealty to the President rather than the rule of law, yet we are told it is the Democrats that come out looking like the losers.

And if Harriet Miers delivers on her promise and skips her legally mandated testimony this morning, we have a clear case of the President of the United States ordering someone to break the law.

The American public are not as dumb, as you seem to think Dahlia. Even the most ardent Bush supporter cannot deny it is the Executive that is floundering in an attempt to stonewall. The political points the Democrats are losing are from their own supporters that do not believe they are being aggressive enough. We want them to take the damn gloves off and demonstrate to this President and his supporters they are not above the law. A Contempt of Congress charge against Miers (if she fails to appear) will be a nice start. Continuing to shred these "ludicrous and extreme" claims is another!

Miers paints a less-sympathetic figure than Taylor (the young, dumb blonde approach won't work for her), so a contempt citation might have less of a political downside for dems.

I can't help but feel that Dahlia's article is just a lengthy Stephen Colbert joke. "Congressional Democrats decimate claim of executive privilege...We discuss how this hurts Congressional Democrats."

I share your general sentiments here ... it has to be underlined, even if the Dems are not as skillfully adroit at pressing the screws as we would like -- how does one get trained for this sort of thing? -- that something really important is being done here. An in effect official realization of what many of us have been thinking for years. DH is good at expressing the theater of it all, but we can't let that keep our eyes off the substance of the whole thing. If the media doesn't focus on the substance, repeatedly, they become enablers. We have seen this all ... the .. time.

I guess my main concern is that I want something expressly done to show that the Democrats truly have drawn blood. Some might argue that it's a long term process that will finish up in Nov. '08, but on some level this is simply unsatisfying.

Such is life sometimes, but truly, bringing in people to show Bush is the emperor with no clothes is not enough. He and his minions have to be truly hurt/punished for their indecent exposure. W/o that net result, some will continue to suggest ... not totally without cause ... the Democrats had four of a kind, and folded.

But, "doing nothing" -- as you suggest -- is not exactly an alternative to not doing enough.

-j

>>> I am completely baffled. Senate Democrats completely obliterated the flimsy claim of executive privilege, yet Dahlia concludes that this was politically unwise.

I agree with this. It seems to me Sens. Leahy, Schumer and Whitehouse did a good job of making a record for a subsequent challenge of the White House's clearly bogus claim of executive privilege. The W.H. appears to have neither the facts nor the law in its favor.

I'd be very interested in hearing Lithwick explain why she thinks Taylor played the committee like a harp, and why she thinks the Dems would've been better off asking nothing. I'm mystified.