Censure
Crooks & Liars has the video of Sen. Russ Feingold's guest appearance with George Stephanopolous today wherein he indicates that he plans to introduce a resolution to censure George W. Bush. Transcript here.
The law is clear. Bush praised the law. Then Bush broke the law. Bush now claims that he has the right to break that law and, in fact, he can break any law, in prosecuting his endless war-on-terror. As Feingold says in the interview, the reasons they give for breaking the law keep changing, but, as I have said before, the claim that he has the inherent right to break any law is, not only ridiculous, but recent. They sure weren't claiming to have the right to do this stuff when they were asking Congress to give them the authority to do it legally a short while ago.
One could ask: what can't he do with this claim? Where does this end? As Feingold asked, could he order the assassination of American citizens? And one other thing, just a pet peeve on mine, stop referring to Bush as the Commander-in-Chief when the topic is domestic affairs. He is the C-i-C of the military only. Otherwise, he is a public servant and, as such, he has sworn an oath to uphold the laws that Congress makes and, like any citizen, he lives and works under the law. Congress makes the laws and the administration's job is to enforce them. He doesn't get to make them and he certainly doesn't get to break them.
"Resolved: that the United States Senate does hereby censure George W. Bush, President of the United States, and does condemn his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans."Seems reasonable to me. Here's the chronology: for a long time, the state has only had the right to spy on its citizens if it obtains a court order (warrant) first. Then Nixon abused this ability so the Congress passed the FISA law in 1978 to more explicitly forbid the administration from spying without a warrant even in cases of national security. More recently, the Patriot Act granted further latitude to the administration and within the last month that act was renewed. However, each time, it was praised by Bush as giving law enforcement officials the tools they needed to allow them to do their jobs. Yes, in spite of this, Bush got the NSA to spy on Americans without getting warrants.
The law is clear. Bush praised the law. Then Bush broke the law. Bush now claims that he has the right to break that law and, in fact, he can break any law, in prosecuting his endless war-on-terror. As Feingold says in the interview, the reasons they give for breaking the law keep changing, but, as I have said before, the claim that he has the inherent right to break any law is, not only ridiculous, but recent. They sure weren't claiming to have the right to do this stuff when they were asking Congress to give them the authority to do it legally a short while ago.
One could ask: what can't he do with this claim? Where does this end? As Feingold asked, could he order the assassination of American citizens? And one other thing, just a pet peeve on mine, stop referring to Bush as the Commander-in-Chief when the topic is domestic affairs. He is the C-i-C of the military only. Otherwise, he is a public servant and, as such, he has sworn an oath to uphold the laws that Congress makes and, like any citizen, he lives and works under the law. Congress makes the laws and the administration's job is to enforce them. He doesn't get to make them and he certainly doesn't get to break them.
posted by Bill at 9:28 PM
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