my political forum

That’s an interesting thought exercise, but back in the real world that is not gonna come out of the Copenhagen summit.

At best we’ll get something slightly more binding than Kyoto, that includes the Chinese and Indians.

A treaty is a different matter. Once it is signed, and then ratified by the Senate, it becomes as important to our system of justice as the Constitution itself. It is not a mere executive order refining a regulatory power granted the Executive by Congress, but the supreme law of the land. Changing a law is one thing; abrogating a treaty is another thing entirely, and very serious.

It’s not Obama’s fault that Congress decided it can’t regulate pollutants without significant help from the Executive branch.

Some folks don’t like that, but that is the way it is.

And Frank, if you can show me a political junkie who doesn’t have at least one (and probably 3-4) great ideas for Constitutional Amendments I’ll show you a geek who doesn’t have 3-4 great ideas for the next version of Windows.

I hope President Obama respects the Constitution. I expect that he will. It is what he is sworn to do.

As for Democracy: Britain has no Separation of Powers, and their version of Checks and Balances (called “Responsible Government”) includes no institutional checks or balances. In fact until a few months ago their top Court was in Parlaiment.

Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India are all run on more or less the same model. The only former British colony that actually has a decent (ie: 20+ year) history of democracy using a system like ours is us.

As for strict Constitutionalism I’m not a fan. The US System was great back when it took weeks for an Ambassador to communicate with DC. It worked pretty well even when the telegraph arrived. Nowadays, with our geopolitical strategy based largely on having full Ambassadors everywhere, always negotiating treaties, it’s just a pain. To do that you need everything to run through one guy. Under our system the only guy that can be is the President.

Folks may not like it, and may yearn for a simpler time when the Senate could actually be consulted on every little agreement. But this is the 21st century.

I think this is a classic power struggle between our “imperial” presidency and the legislative branch. While President Obama has deferred to Congress more than most recent Presidents for his agenda items (health care, stimulus, cap and trade), he still doesn’t avoid the temptation to aggregate power and amass more of it through things like extension of the Patriot Act, appointment of numerous “czars” that don’t get congressional approval, etc. Its a natural inclination that all Presidents have, and left unchecked, it doesn’t bode well for our democracy.

Webb’s statement is a good sign that the Senate will not roll over for further encroachment into their sphere of influence.

IIRC they are technically federal law as long as he’s President, tho.

He probably doesn’t need ratification for some things. In particular as the EPA is able to regulate Carbon emissions he could just make a deal, come home, and tell the EPA what their new regs will say.