Jim Hightower, Hightower London
Where is Congress? It’s way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered — a presidential coup is taking place. I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry.
“My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total,” she declared in her thundering voice. “And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution.”Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today’s Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators — or worse, as abettors of Bush’s usurpation of their own congressional authority.