President Bush Broke the Law

UPDATE - Gore's case is a
Good One…

… But even after discounting for political motivations,
it seems to me that Gore has done a service by laying out the case as clearly
and copiously as he has done. His overall charge is that Bush has systematically
broken the laws and bent the Constitution by his actions in the areas of national
security and domestic anti-terrorism. He is not the first to make that complaint.
My e-mail has included many messages from people who have leaped far ahead
of the evidence and concluded that Bush should be impeached and removed from
office for actions they deem illegal.

Gore stops well short of that point and contents himself
with citing the cases that cause many others concern. The first — and to
my mind weakest — instance is the claim that Bush took the nation to war
on the basis of false intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

But the other cases Gore cited are more troubling.
The Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, for which only low-level military personnel
have been punished, traces back through higher and untouched levels of command
to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House, all of which
failed in their duties to ensure that the occupation forces were adhering
to recognized international standards for the treatment of prisoners.

Similarly, the administration's resistance to setting
and enforcing clear prohibitions on torture and inhumane treatment of detainees
in the war on terrorism raises legitimate questions about its willingness
to adhere to the rule of law. From the first days after Sept. 11, Bush has
appeared to believe that he is essentially unconstrained. His oddly equivocal
recent signing statement on John McCain's legislation banning such tactics
seemed to say he could ignore the plain terms of the law.

Gore's final example — on which he has lots of company
among legal scholars — is the contention that Bush broke the law in ordering
the National Security Agency to monitor domestic phone calls without a warrant
from the court Congress had created to supervise all such wiretapping. If
— as the Justice Department and the White House insist — the president can
flout that law, then it is hard to imagine what power he cannot assert.

Gore's
Challenge

James
Risen stated unequivocally that he doesn't believe President Bush lied about WMD, the one issue David Broder finds weak in Gore's indictment of Bush. At this late
date and with all that's swirling in Iraq, it hardly seems the major issue.
There are others that are far more troubling today.

The signing statement has been used time and again by President
Bush, which is obviously the way he gets around a veto, even though the line
item veto was knocked down by the court a long time ago. What is the signing
statement but a bastard version of the line item veto? At least that's my take,
though I'm not qualified to say, as a non-lawyer.

However, it is the signing statement that allowed Bush to have
his photo op with John McCain, shake the man's hand, then lead him out of the
room and then laugh at him behind his back. It reminds me of a story I read
in the American Prospect called “Spun Silver.”

Recalling a December 4 interview with Ron Silver in The New
York Times Magazine, which I didn't read, the actor and activist talked
about how President Bush was a “really likable guy.” Then Silver recounted
his encounter. The president said to him, “You're a good man, Ronnie. It's
nice to see you.” To which Silver replied, “Mr. President, only my
mother calls me Ronnie.” Bush looked Silver right “in the eye,”
then said again, “You're a good man, Ronnie.”

It's amazing what one little anecdote will reveal, isn't it?

Being indelicate about it, our president is a prick.

But the most unnerving aspect of the president's power grab is
the obvious illegalities of his NSA wiretapping, which becomes more troubling
and dangerous to our democracy the more I read.

George W. Bush obviously doesn't think he has to listen to anyone,
honor any protocols, respect anyone or anything, because he's convinced himself
that a wartime president is imbued with extra-constitutional and legal powers
that no one can challenge.

We need to prove him wrong.