Gents, we need to get some pictures on the air/web of the prison in the basement of the Capitol Building. ASAP.

And an interview with the Sergeant-at-Arms, whose good offices would be used to arrest Karl Rove and throw him into that very Capitol basement clink.

The only way Congress will get up off its back with feet waggling in the air is if all its members are embarrassed by the press, day after day after day after day.

Why should the press hound these, our highest elected legislators? Is it because they're feckless? Pusillanimous? Yellow-bellied cowards. In the pocket of large campaign bribers, or "contributors," as they're euphemistically called?

No, of course not. I could care less that these men and women are "politicians."

What I DO care about is that they have foresworn the one, single, solitary oath they took before they were seated in Congress. That one oath was to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States" against all enemies, both foreign and Cheney...oops, foreign and domestic.

But the ONE JOB THEY TOOK AN OATH TO PERFORM ON BEHALF OF WE, THE PEOPLE, THEY HAVE NOT DONE. AND THE CONSTITUTION LIES SHREDDED ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR--OR IN THIS CASE, THE WELLS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

And because of Congress' failure to honor this one oath, we have conducted an illegal invasion of Iraq, are continuing an illegal occupation of Iraq, are trying to wrest control of Iraq's oil from the puppet government we're trying to set up, are trying to force the Iraqi government to let us keep our 14 permanently "enduring" bases there, along with our gated Embassy City in Baghdad. The result of this illegal war (remember that only Congress can declare war, according to the Framers who wrote and the ratifiers who approved and put that Constitution into effect) is global instability, a reduction in our national defense (item four in the Preamble), loss of jobs, a true "surge" in our national debt, increased decrepitude of the nation's physical infrastructure, unchecked global warming/climate change (an antiseptic euphemism).

The trashing of our constitution as to Habeas Corpus, right to trial by peers, right to due process, right to be secure in our persons and in our homes and free from illegal searches and seizures (that is, warrantless wiretapping, spying on citizens by the CIA, which is expressly enjoined from doing so, etc. As to the ULIC seeing that the laws be faithfully executed (note that "faith" word—you'd think that the ULIC, stating his faith in, and personal relationship with, God, would have passing familiarity with the concept of faith and faithful, but, as he's never read the US Constitution he swore (twice) to preserve, protect and defend, I guess we shouldn't be surprised). And never mind the unexplained "attacks" on the three buildings in the World Trade Center (Buildings 7, 2 and 1), the failure to protect Louisiana, the subversion of the Justice Department, the actual breaking of criminal laws (FISA, abuse of process, perjury, personally benefiting from government contracts, bribery, "outing" of secret CIA personnel, suborning perjury (EPA's pronouncements on the "safety" of the WTC demolition site, meaning no protective gear was required, all the while requiring federal workers in Washington, DC to wear said safety gear, well, when can one stop enumerating all the ways in which the Constitution has NOT been supported and defended by our Members of Congress.

Because of their failure to perform their own jobs, and to honor their oaths of office, these terrible things have happened (and I haven't even mentioned the over 4,000 dead American troops, the murder of Pat Tillman, the 30,000 to 40,000 American soldiers maimed or wounded, the more than 200,000 troops what will have to be supported for traumatic- and post-traumatic "stress" disorder, perhaps for the rest of their lives).

In my view, virtually all of the Members of Congress have failed to perform the paramount oversight task assigned to them in the Constitution and have therefore become accessories after the fact, or co-conspirators, with the miscreants in the White House, and should themselves be impeached and removed from office.

And a few hundred thousand Iraqi civilians dead, another handful of hundreds maimed and wounded, five or so million Iraqis dispossessed both in-country and as émigrés, another million or so of the elderly and children under five years of age dead for lack of sanitary water, refrigeration, hospitals and medicines. This was the result of an illegal blockade ("collective punishment," as the Geneva Conventions put it) that was imposed by Poppy "The Don" Bush and kept up by him, the Clintons and then George "Le Donette" Bush (a.k.a. the ULIC--or Unitary Liar-In-Chief), for some 11 years--that's ONE DECADE plus ONE.

That's just for starters as to what failing to support and defend the Constitution has led to.

So, maybe the oath of office is a useless, "quaint" artifact of a time when men had honor and slaves, and we should amend the Constitution to remove the requirement of such an oath of office, or supplant it with the mantra of The Incumbent Party: "That whatsoever King, President or Dictator shall reign, I'll still keep my seat, sir." (Apologies to The Vicar of Bray.)