Two weeks ago, Tim Russert fawned over Robert Byrd, the former Klansman who is the senior Democrat in the Senate. Wolf Blitzer was a little tougher with Senator Byrd this morning. And it didn't take much to display the Senate's nutty old aunt at his best:
BYRD: I need to keep on fighting for the Constitution. That's what I'm doing in this book here. That's exactly -- I wrote this book here in order to save this book here, the Constitution of the United States. This administration has put the Constitution aside, as it were, time after time after time. They've ignored the Constitution of the United States.
BLITZER: One example where Bush ignored the Constitution?
BYRD: Well, he ignored the Constitution when he tried to loosen the strings time after time after time that the Congress puts on appropriations. And this book, this Constitution, says that the power to appropriate is vested in the Congress of the United States. And the Bush administration time after time has ignored the Constitution.
BLITZER: But they've violated what the Congress appropriates? Is that what you're saying?
BYRD: Well, it likes to ignore the Constitution -- this administration does.
BLITZER: Well, I'm hearing you say that they deal with the appropriations issue. But every executive branch, every president, Democrat and Republican -- they try to do that.
BYRD: Well, this president of ours ignored the Constitution, ignored the Constitution when it decided that it wanted to go to war in Iraq.
BLITZER: How did they ignore the Constitution?
BYRD: By failing to work with the other countries of the world.
BLITZER: That says that in the Constitution?
BYRD: Doesn't say it precisely in the Constitution. But this administration time and again has ignored the Constitution. You can see it in the way that this administration has tried to reach -- make power grabs for more and more power.
BYRD: This is a power-grabbing administration, and it ignores the Constitution, which says that Congress shall declare war, and Congress shall appropriate the moneys. Now, not only...
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