Schumer plays the MP from High Dudgeon

Dana Milbank:

Give him a sword and a tunic, and Chuck Schumer would have made a passable Oliver Cromwell as he stood on the Senate floor yesterday.

The New York Democrat, playing a British parliamentarian, had come to seek a "vote of no confidence" in Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- and thereby deal a blow to the imperial reign of President Bush the Second.

"We have a sacred, noble obligation in this country to defend the rule of law!" said the honorable Member of Parliament from High Dudgeon. "Without rule of law, without democracy, without rule of law being applied without fear or favor, there is no freedom!"

There was one big problem with Lord Protector Schumer's plan: The American system of government does not have no-confidence votes. That's what they do in Britain and other places with prime ministers and Houses of Commons and that sort of thing.

"This is not the British Parliament, and I hope it never will become the British Parliament," protested Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.), the chamber's No. 2 Republican. "Are we going to bring the president in here and have a question period like the prime minister has in Great Britain?"

...

Milbank is in good snark form in this story, but he has a point on Schumer. It has to be somewhat ironic that someone making a speech in which he uses the term "rule of law" three times in one short paragraph, is ignoring the rules and constitution under which we operate by bringing his motion to begin with.

However, Schumer is not a stupid man. He knows that. The reason he is posturing for the cameras and the media has to do with his job of getting Democrats elected and he thinks that putting on such a farce helps in that venture. He is wrong. The other reason he is attacking Gonzales is that he wants to thwart any Justice Department cases against vote fraud, Apparently those voters are part of his base and his election strategy.

Tony Snow comments on the Schumer show.