I’ve recently been following the political developments in Ecuador. Their president, Lucio Gutierrez, was forced out of office on Wednesday. Congress voted to remove him amidst massive protests over what was deemed to be illegally reworking the Supreme Court. Check out this passage:

President Lucio Gutiérrez of Ecuador fled his presidential palace on Wednesday after the Congress, meeting in special session, voted to remove him. The Congress then swore in Vice President Alfredo Palacio, a 66-year-old cardiologist, to replace Mr. Gutiérrez, 48, a former army colonel who had faced mounting street protests against what critics called an illegal overhaul of the Supreme Court…Ecuadorean protesters accused all three[former presidents] of corruption, mismanagement and a strong-arm governing style. “Today, the dictatorship, the immorality, the arrogance and the fear have ended,” Dr. Palacio said in a speech broadcast on Colombia’s Caracol radio network. “From today, we will restore a republic with a government of the people.”

The Ecuadorean people clearly decided that they wanted their government to follow the rule of law. Good for them. Now imagine if Bush and Frist push for the nuclear option, Bush packs the Supreme Court with regressive religious conservative activists, and rule of law goes out the window. Would the American people respond to the destruction of the judiciary in the same way? Would Congress have the cojones to stand up to Bush? Will the public hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their “corruption, mismanagement, and strong-arm governing style”?

It’s not that I expect the American people to force Bush and his cronies out of office, but what, seriously, would be a comparable response in this country? Impeachment? The 2008 elections? We’re not exactly prone to ousting American presidents from power, but there should be a parallel level of anger that we exact in our own way. It’d be nice if the mainstream media noticed the causes of the Guitierrez ouster and its similarities to what Bush is trying to do.

Philo