Checks and balances

Last November, the Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in a mid-term landslide widely interpreted as a backlash against President Bush and the Iraq war. Today, they finally took power in Washington. Not only is this a historic day for the US in electing its first female Speaker of the House - it also marks the return of something absent from official Washington for the last four years: checks and balances. One of the roles of the US legislature is to act as a check on the power of the President, both in enacting leislation and through the committee oversight process. When the Republicans were in charge, this didn't happen - the White House had an iron grip, and Republican legislators didn't see any reason to question the President simply because he was torturing people and undermining constitutional and human rights. Now that is going to change - and hopefully it will make the White House very uncomfortable.

There's already been one sign of that discomfort: Harriet Miers, the White House counsel Bush laughably nominated to the Supreme Court, has resigned. I guess she didn't want to spend the next two years actually having to work...