Stop whining and stand up
I sympathize with the governor of Kansas whose tornado recovery efforts are hampered because the National Guard is tied up in Iraq, but only up to a point.
I sympathize with all 50 of the nation's governors who oppose an unconstitutional new law giving President Bush all manner of powers to activate the National Guard in an "emergency", but my sympathy goes only so far.
At some point, a governor needs to assert his or her constitutional authority and give the smackdown to the executive power grab in Washington, and tell the president NO…You may NOT send my state's guardsmen and their equipment to Iraq.
It is completely within their power to do so, so why won't they do it?
I don't think any of these governors has the stones to trigger a constitutional crisis, which this surely would. And it smacks too much of rebellion, even secession…and as I've written before, the whole notion of secession is way too tied up in our national consciousness with slavery.
But if push came to shove, I don't think Team Bush would send in the troops to put down such a rebellion. Indeed, whichever governor stood up could become a national hero — first for taking concrete action against the war in a way Congressional Democrats won't, and second for cutting the federal government down a notch and bringing the balance of powers between Washington and the states back into (at least slightly) better balance.
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