On Tuesday, when this page runs the list of people it has endorsed for election, we will include no Republican congressional candidates for the first time in our memory. Although Times editorials tend to agree with Democrats on national policy, we have proudly and consistently endorsed a long line of moderate Republicans, particularly for the House. Our only political loyalty is to making the two-party system as vital and responsible as possible.

That is why things are different this year.

To begin with, the Republican majority that has run the House — and for the most part, the Senate — during President Bush's tenure has done a terrible job on the basics. Its tax-cutting-above-all-else has wrecked the budget, hobbled the middle class and endangered the long-term economy. It has refused to face up to global warming and done pathetically little about the country's dependence on foreign oil.

Republican leaders, particularly in the House, have developed toxic symptoms of an overconfident majority that has been too long in power. They methodically shut the opposition — and even the more moderate members of their own party — out of any role in the legislative process. Their only mission seems to be self-perpetuation.

The current Republican majority managed to achieve that burned-out, brain-dead status in record time, and with a shocking disregard for the most minimal ethical standards. It was bad enough that a party that used to believe in fiscal austerity blew billions on pork-barrel projects. It is worse that many of the most expensive boondoggles were not even directed at their constituents, but at lobbyists who financed their campaigns and high-end lifestyles.

That was already the situation in 2004, and even then this page endorsed Republicans who had shown a high commitment to ethics reform and a willingness to buck their party on important issues like the environment, civil liberties and women's rights.

For us, the breaking point came over the Republicans' attempt to undermine the fundamental checks and balances that have safeguarded American democracy since its inception. The fact that the White House, House and Senate are all controlled by one party is not a threat to the balance of powers, as long as everyone understands the roles assigned to each by the Constitution. But over the past two years, the White House has made it clear that it claims sweeping powers that go well beyond any acceptable limits. Rather than doing their duty to curb these excesses, the congressional Republicans have dedicated themselves to removing restraints on the president's ability to do whatever he wants. To paraphrase Tom DeLay, the Republicans feel you don't need to have oversight hearings if your party is in control of everything.

An administration convinced of its own perpetual rightness and a partisan Congress determined to deflect all criticism of the chief executive has been the recipe for what we live with today.

Congress, in particular the House, has failed to ask probing questions about the war in Iraq or hold the president accountable for his catastrophic bungling of the occupation. It also has allowed Bush to avoid answering any questions about whether his administration cooked the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. Then, it quietly agreed to close down the one agency that has been riding herd on crooked and inept American contractors who have botched everything from construction work to the security of weapons.

After the revelations about the abuse, torture and illegal detentions in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Congress shielded the Pentagon from any responsibility for the atrocities its policies allowed to happen. On the eve of the election, and without even a pretense at debate in the House, Congress granted the White House permission to hold hundreds of noncitizens in jail forever, without due process, even though many of them were clearly sent there in error.

In the Senate, the path for this bill was cleared by a handful of Republicans who used their personal prestige and reputation for moderation to paper over the fact that the bill violates the Constitution in fundamental ways. Having acquiesced in the president's campaign to dilute their own authority, lawmakers used this bill to further Bush's goal of stripping the powers of the only remaining independent branch, the judiciary.

This election is indeed about George W. Bush — and the congressional majority's insistence on protecting him from the consequences of his mistakes and misdeeds. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 and proceeded to govern as if he had an enormous mandate. After he actually beat his opponent in 2004, he announced he now had real political capital and intended to spend it. We have seen the results. It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

TESTING NORTH KOREA

Nobody knows why the North Koreans decided to come back to the negotiating table or whether any pressure or promise could persuade them to give up their nuclear weapons. But after a year of nothing happening — except for Pyongyang churning out more plutonium — it is far past time to find out.

Administration hawks are claiming that sanctions and the threat of a naval blockade — after last month's nuclear test — wrestled the North back to the table. The more diplomatically minded suggest that Washington's offer to also discuss American financial sanctions may have helped tip the balance.

So what do we do now? The best approach is to try more of both — pressure and promises — and see if it works. That is pretty unremarkable advice. Except, of course, for the Bush administration, which can't decide if it wants to negotiate with Kim Jong-il or try to overthrow him.

Last year President Bush agreed to offer economic and security incentives to North Korea. And Pyongyang may — or may not — have agreed to give up its weapons. But we never got to find out because Washington quickly undercut its own offer, imposing tough new financial sanctions, ostensibly to punish the North for selling counterfeit dollars. The North walked away from the table.

North Korea more than deserves to be punished for testing a nuclear weapon. And the sight of a unified U.N. Security Council meting out even limited sanctions has caught its attention. We suspect that China's undeclared suspension of oil deliveries during the month of September (after the North's missile tests) also helped. That is a clear argument for the Security Council to keep up the pressure. More nudges from Beijing would help, too.

But this is certainly not the time for backtracking. It is also not the time for more unilateral American sanctions, intemperate rhetoric or anything else administration hawks might cook up to scuttle the talks. If Bush is serious about trying to negotiate his way out of the nightmare of a nuclear-armed North Korea, he needs to end debate within his administration and empower Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cut the best deal she can. She should start with a clear pledge that the United States will not try to overthrow the North Korean government if it gives up its weapons program.

It's impossible to know whether North Korea's Dear Leader will trade away his weapons at any price. But this White House has yet to test him.

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