"The president of the United States likes to spend his suburban ranchette vacation killing time cutting stuff down with a chainsaw and then torching it. Holy shit. Does it get any more symbolic than that?" - Digby.
Constitutional thuggery
The Imperial Presidency
"This is a war. If somebody from al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why," Bush said. Fair enough: but it still doesn't answer the core question as to the legality of what was done and WHY it was done...and why even Ashcroft wouldn't sanction it.
That's a theme Americans will hear again and again leading up to the State of the Union address, which officials say will position Bush as a "strong and decisive leader," prosecuting the war on terrorism as he reins in spending at home and spreads democracy around the world. "It's Bush as Churchill, Bush as Reagan and Goldwater and Bush as Woodrow Wilson," says a presidential adviser.
But when civil liberties are involved, inviting historic comparisons can be a dangerous business. "This is an Administration," says Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "that has tried to bypass courts and the legal procedures more than any since Richard Nixon."
That's a theme Americans will hear again and again leading up to the State of the Union address, which officials say will position Bush as a "strong and decisive leader," prosecuting the war on terrorism as he reins in spending at home and spreads democracy around the world. "It's Bush as Churchill, Bush as Reagan and Goldwater and Bush as Woodrow Wilson," says a presidential adviser.But when civil liberties are involved, inviting historic comparisons can be a dangerous business. "This is an Administration," says Patrick Leahy, top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, "that has tried to bypass courts and the legal procedures more than any since Richard Nixon."
We have met the enemy, and he is us.
The ability to spy on domestic conversations is obviously abusable. And we already know that Tom DeLay tricked the Department of Homeland Security into tracking the whereabouts of Texas Democratic legislators who had fled to Oklahoma to try to block a quorum for DeLay's redistricting scheme. And we know that DeLay got away with it. So if the question on the table is "Will the Republicans abuse domestic-security powers for political purposes?" we know that the answer is "Yes."
"The president's dead wrong. It's not a close question. Federal law is clear," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and a specialist in surveillance law. "When the president admits that he violated federal law, that raises serious constitutional questions of high crimes and misdemeanors."
There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons.
These parallel violations underscore the continuing, disturbing parallels between this Administration and the Nixon Administration. Bush has ordered a criminal investigation into the source of the leak. Such a criminal investigation is rather ironic - for the leak's effect was to reveal Bush's own offense. Having been ferreted out as a criminal, Bush now will try to ferret out the leakers who revealed him. - John Dean, who oughtta know about these things.
These parallel violations underscore the continuing, disturbing parallels between this Administration and the Nixon Administration. Bush has ordered a criminal investigation into the source of the leak. Such a criminal investigation is rather ironic - for the leak's effect was to reveal Bush's own offense. Having been ferreted out as a criminal, Bush now will try to ferret out the leakers who revealed him. - John Dean, who oughtta know about these things.
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