What Bush Doesn't Get

Congress has passed a bill for funding of the Iraqi occupation that requires setting a date for American forces to leave there. Bush says that he will veto it. Once again, he demonstrates that his ignorance of fundamental principles of democracy make him a traitor who should be executed, not someone who should ever have set foot in the White House, even on the tour.
Vetoes were never meant to give the executive power to override the wishes of the people; they were intended as part of the balance of power among the branches--a means of curbing legislative usurpations without resorting to the courts. The real power lay with the representatives of the people in the legislature. A legislative act that passed both houses--one that had the support of the representatives of most of the people--therefore represented the will of the people unless it infringed on executive or judiciary prerogatives, in which case the executive would veto it. And if the executive didn't veto it, opponents of the act had recourse to the courts.
Bush, of course, overlooks that in a democracy or a democratic republic, the will o the people trumps the will of the executive. He can claim that he doesn't believe in polls, but that's only because he comes from a family of imperial wannabes who have sought to claim greater power for themselves through a variety of unsavory means. Most Americans say that it's time to end the war, and their representatives have heard them. It is now time for Bush to end the war, whether he likes it or not, whether he thinks that the people's wishes are prudent or not.
But he won't. The problem is not that he won't end a stupid war; it's that he claims for himself a power that no one in a democratic republic can have.