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Terry,
I was in Kiev last month, which is the reason I joined this forum. I believe that Ukraine is in a unique position between east and west. They can be either a bridge, or a divide.
Normally, I would agree with your comparison of US and Ukrainian democracy. But, currently there is a crisis in American democracy that obscures the differences in the accountability of politicians you allude to. The last such crisis was during the Nixon reign. The key difference between then and now was that democrats controlled both houses of Congress in the early '70s. Now, republicans control both houses, as well as the judiciary. In Texas, we have been in such a one-party state since the mid-90s. Since 2000, this condition has extended to the federal government. Party discipline now trumps the checks and balances designed into the system. Tom Delay, known as 'the hammer' was the enforcer of party discipline. His 'hammer' was financial. Campaign finance laws now concentrate contributions through the party. Politicians are graded on their correctness in voting records and funds are disbursed accordingly.
Under the current model, it is highly unlikely that the Bush administration will be held accountable for their obvious crimes. The latest scandal involving domestic spying is a test to determine if the president is subject to legal restraints, or has immunity similar to Ukrainian legislators. Since the 'unitary president' has much greater relative power than legislators, I would say that, if Bush is successful, the flaw in the Ukrainian democratic model would be dwarfed by that in the American one. And the flaw will be passed on to the next president. Caesar will have ended the republic and inaugurated the imperium.
Joe Kozak