Is The Times Hopelessly Optimistic in Pronouncing There Are "Signs of Life in Congress"?

I think so.. but read for yourself in its entirety; snippet here:

Congress, which is supposed to push back against executive attempts to amass overweening power, has hardly played its proper role when it comes to George W. Bush. In the past, when evidence arose that the president had overstepped his authority, the Congressional response was generally to look for ways to make whatever Mr. Bush did retroactively legal. But the Supreme Court's decision on the Guantánamo Bay detention camp seems to have jolted even some of the most loyal Republicans back to reality. They are vowing that this time, they will not merely rubber-stamp presidential overreaching. Soon, Americans will get a sense of how seriously to take this newfound spine...

We would not be in this mess if Mr. Bush had followed the rules. If he had allowed the screening of captives on the battlefield, which the military wanted and the Geneva Conventions require, hundreds of innocent men would never have been sent to Gitmo. If he had asked Congress to create tribunals, instead of fashioning extralegal ones, some of those prisoners who really are terrorists might have been convicted by now in full view of the world.

Senator Graham put it just right the other day. "We don't need to change who we are to win the war," he said. "We need to create a system to meet the needs of a fair trial, the rights of the accused and the defense of the nation, that the world will see as fair and the nation can be proud of."

We hope Congress follows that spirit.

As much as I admire that Graham - one of the Clinton impeachers - has occasionally bucked the Rove line, I don't trust him as far as I can throw all four of his weak chins. Last week, he tried to float an unconstitutional bit of fluff.

I think The Times is deluded.