The Bush Administration grows more gutless by the day.

Imagine this scenario: you win the presidency, and your party not only wins the House of Representatives, but the Senate too. Then you (as president) nominate some judges to the bench who actually think the wording of the Constitution means something.

But the minority party doesn't like that, and so they try a trick to block those nominations. To overcome this, you, the president (and leader of the party controlling both chambers of Congress) excercise your Constitutional right to sneak in and install exactly two of those dozens of blocked judges while the Congress is in recess.

The minority party screams bloody murder and tells you "Now we're not going to let any of your judges be confirmed. We had been blocking most of them, now we're blocking all of them."

You, as president (and leader of the party controlling both chambers of Congress) put your tail between your legs and say "Wow, you're playing some real hardball here. Tell you what: I promise I won't appoint any more judges behind your back if you'll only please, please, please go back to blocking most of my nominees rather than all of them."

"Okay, it's a deal," the minority party says. "We'll go back to blocking your judges while you go back to letting us."

In such a scenario, who would appear to be in charge?

TOM DASCHLE: Bark, George! Bark!

GEORGE W. BUSH: Arf! Arf!