Madame President?

What? Congress is following the lead of the Iraqi parliament while our constitutional democracy burns?

"In the debate before the 22-to-17 vote to pass the contempt resolution, Democrats on the committee firmly rejected the White House argument that the invocation of executive privilege blocked Congress from obtaining information from Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, or Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff."

McCain Meltdown Watch, Volume 27, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

"Sen. John McCain's well-known media team has resigned, an indication that his campaign shake-up is continuing to backfire and imperiling the Arizona Republican's presidential candidacy.

"Political ad-makers Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens, veterans of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, on Monday emailed the new campaign manager -- lobbyist and longtime McCain adviser Rick Davis -- to say that they were quitting. The two men told friends they had considered leaving for days, as they hadn't been paid and the campaign's financial straits raised questions of when and how much they would be."

McCain did a call with some conservative bloggers, and here's a tidbit from Ryan Sager:

"He fired back at Newt Gingrich, who said yesterday that Mr. McCain would drop out of the presidential race as soon as he collects his matching funds. Mr. Gingrich has no idea what he's talking about, Mr. McCain said, unless he has 'listening devices' installed in McCain headquarters. Instead, Mr. McCain argues, any decision to accept matching funds would be about winning . . .

"All in all, Mr. McCain sounded about as worn and beaten down by this campaign as he always does. I've not labeled this post as a Death Watch item, but this remains a campaign on life support."

There is lots of chatter out there about the Hillary-Obama dustup that began in this week's South Carolina faceoff:

"Obama screwed up big time in the CNN-YouTube debate on Monday night, by leaving the impression -- during a response to a crucial foreign policy question -- that he would not be sufficiently tough-minded when dealing with America's adversaries," says Dick Polman.

"That's a fatal error for any Democrat, given the party's traditional image. And it's a potentially special problem for Obama, because he is still new on the national scene, and is stuck with the task of demonstrating to skeptical voters that his commander-in-chief instincts might at least compensate for his lack of experience. But he might've hurt himself on Monday might, when he left the impression that he would be Bambi in a forest of predators . . .

"Obama, by his own words, is a naif who would be rolled by the bad guys. Gee, do you think the Republicans would have a field day with something like that, if Obama won the nomination?"