More contradictions from the Right

The Republican ability to speak from both sides of their faces (that which they describe in others as "flip-flopping") never ceases to amaze me. I was trying to find documentation on Clinton's successful budget veto in the 90's, when I ran across this little gem by David N. Mayer:

When modern presidents use the veto in so blatantly a political manner, they do more than simply engage in partisanship: they also seriously undermine the Constitution itself. A president who vetoes every piece of legislation that he dislikes on policy grounds forces Congress to accede to his wishes, unless it is able to muster a two-thirds majority in both houses to override the vetoes. Such use of the veto indeed constitutes blackmail. It thwarts not only the will of the people, as manifested in the most recent congressional elections, but also the design of the framers of the Constitution, who intended that the legislative power be vested primarily in the people’s representatives in the Congress. Profligate use of the veto, in effect, transforms the simple majority vote required by Article I to a two-thirds majority requirement--in effect, working a change in the constitutional procedures for enacting legislation. (1996)

Funnily enough, though, now that Congress has passed a budget calling for an end to our military presence in Iraq (ironically, supported by two-thirds of Americans, if not two-thirds of the Legislature), here's what ol' Dave has to say now:

However one sees the policy, one thing is clear, under U.S. constitutional law: although Congress has the authority to cut off funding for U.S. military intervention in Iraq (the “power over the purse strings” is among the legislature’s legitimate powers, even with regard to foreign affairs), Congress does not have the authority to micro-manage the conduct of war, acting in effect as 535 commanders-in-chief. There’s only one commander-in-chief, assigned that power under Article II of the Constitution – the President – and President Bush would quite properly veto any law passed by Congress that interferes with his legitimate constitutional authority. (2007)

Hey, wait, what happened to all that "will of the people stuff? Oh, that's right, it only applies when the people are right, otherwise "wiser" heads, like Big Daddy Dubya, prevail. My what a difference a decade makes.

My ass, it does.

Listen, if anyone has a link to when Clinton and his budget veto brought the government to a halt and handed the Republican congress their ass, I'd appreciate it.