That Sounds Suspiciously Like More of the Same

Once again, from my best friend Glenn Greenwald, is Sarah Palin’s contempt (pun intended?) for subpoenas. Once she began McCain’s vice presidential nominee, Palin suddenly decided that she didn’t want to comply with subpoenas regarding the investigation into her firing of the state police commissioner. How can she get away with this? Well, as Greenwald notes, who’s going to stop her? He quotes from an AP story (emphasis his):

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s husband has refused to testify in the investigation of his wife’s alleged abuse of power, and key lawmakers said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses areeffectively sidetracking the probe until after Election Day.

Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person or by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. Palin’s lawyer sent a letter to the lead investigator saying Palin objected to the probe and would not appear to testify on Friday. . . .

Ignoring a legislative subpoena is punishable by a fine up to $500 and up to six months in jail under Alaska law. But courts are reluctant to intervene in legislative matters and the full Legislature must be in session to bring contempt charges, Wielechowski said. The Legislature is not scheduled to convene until January.

Hmm, here we have a legislature attempting to exercise its lawful obligation of oversight over the executive. Here we have the executive blatantly ignoring the law and refusing to comply with the investigation. Does that sound familiar? In a McCain/Palin administration, expect more constitutional showdowns as the administration invents, from whole cloth, policies designed to neuter Congress of its oversight powers and then dares that same Congress to haul them into court. In the meantime, McCain and Palin will go on TV to talk about how Congress is wasting time with partisan “investigations.” Is this outside the realm of possibility? Does this sound like anything we’ve heard before?