Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth!

[Don Corleone]

Yes and no. First and foremost, the president and the congress still can't do anything that the Supreme Court says is unconstitutional. At the end of the day, our Surpeme Court wields more power (theoretically) then the president and the congress combined. However, they have no power to enforce their decisions, they can only come out and say what the president & congress are up to is unconstitutional. This is why we Americans prattle on about the Supreme Court so much (which, I suppose if you don't have one, seems like much ado about nothing... it's something, believe me...)

Second, it's rare that even when they are in the same party that the president and Congress will see eye to eye on a lot. What's more, there's a lot of cheques built into the Senate rules so that unless one party has a ridiculous majority (like > 2/3), the minority party can hold them up and run interference. The House tends to play it foot loose and fancy free... 50.1% is enough to pull anything off.

But yes, theoretically, if the president's party won majorities in both houses, one party would run everything over here (because the military, the money, the borders, etc, would all be in their hands). The supreme court could only stand on the sidelines crying foul. Tachi and other American Leftys would probably even tell you that's what's actually going on right now, but in truth, the president's fight within his own party is worse than anything he has going on with the Democrats right now.

Technically, when it comes to foreign affairs, the president wields absolute power, even if both houses are held by the opposition. Only he can negotiate deals and receive emissaries. The only thing Congress has to do with foreign policy (other than voting the money to pay for it) is the Senate has to ratify a treaty for us to officially join to a treaty (which, I think, is technically why we never formally joined the Kyoto accords. W just quit asking the Senate to sign it, after they'd said no 3 times already).