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May 28, 2006
The Method and the Madness of King George
By Len Hart
For the first time in American history, armed federal agents of the executive branch of the government executed a raid on Congress and spent hours "rifling through papers" and removing materials that they alone deemed necessary to an investigation. Is this just a part of Bush's mad plan?
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Recently, with his pet poodle Tony Blair in tow, Bush said he regretted having said "Bring it on!" He called it "tough talk". Is this mere alcoholic's remorse publicly confessed until he can spin and sin again? It is more accurately described as "misdirection". He is publicly contrite to disarm opponents while he spoils for a showdown that will have the effect of consolidating power already claimed for himself.A raid on congress, for example, is not a "big deal" if you buy Bushco's logic that the executive can routinely raid an independent and equal branch of government. A raid on congress is not a "big deal" —if one buys the Bush/Gonazales re-write of the Fourth Amendment. It is a "big deal", if you don't.
I don't buy the Bush rewrite of both history and Constitution; and I deny that Bush, Gonzales and Hayden have the authority to rewrite the Bill of Rights. The standard is "probable cause" —not "reasonableness". I don't care what Gonzales or Hayden may say to the contrary. They are either wrong or lying or both. There is no excuse for Hayden's not having read the Fourth Amendment and his ignorance of it should have disqualified him from heading the CIA where his pig-headed ignorance will further harm the nation.
What Bush has really done is to throw down the gauntlet. The range of issues taken together makes a sinister mosaic.
The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.—James Madison
Like Ashcroft, Gonzales favors greater executive branch secrecy. Like Ashcroft, Gonzales favors the centralization of presidential power -- as well as its expansion. Indeed, Gonzales provided the legal arguments used to claim that the president has the power, under the Constitution, to order torture, despite the fact that torture violates the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements the United States has ratified and implemented.The two words —probable cause —seem more precious than ever when they are so ominously threatened. A favorable ruling for Bush could all but consolidate his dictatorship. Just two words —probable cause —now stand between us and tyranny.Indeed, Gonzales deemed international law -- which becomes the law of the United States, under our Constitution, when properly ratified by the Senate -- to be "quaint" and outdated when applied to the war on terrorism. To say this, is to say, in effect that the Constitution itself is quaint and outdated.
Unsurprisingly, Gonzales -- like Ashcroft -- has been a strong supporter of the Patriot Act, and the president's recent calls to renew its key provisions which are set to sunset next year. And Gonzales, like Ashcroft, has been a proponent of the administration's policy of detaining any person it labeled an "enemy combatant" without giving them access to the courts to make an effective determination of their status.
According to Gonzales -- and to Ashcroft before him -- even judicial review to determine whether the facts support the "enemy combatant" designation should not occur. Gonzales, like Ashcroft, believes that the president's -- and attorney general's -- kingly power trumps even some of the most prized of American's basic rights, the rights to physical liberty, and to due process of law.
Len Hart is a Houston based film/video producer specializing in shorts and full-length documentaries. He is a former major market and network correspondent; credits include CBS, ABC-TV and UPI. He maintains the progressive blog: The Existentialist Cowboy