Read closely the article below about Bush and his illegal domestic spying program:
The White House is hoping that talks will lead to legislation to approve the program, much as Congress eventually approved Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War. Mr. Bush expanded on his defense of the program in Tampa, Fla., on Friday, saying he believed that he had to take extraordinary steps in a time of war.Now note a few of the details.
"Unfortunately, we're having this discussion," he said of the debate over wiretapping. "It's too bad, because guess who listens to the discussion: the enemy."
He added: "The enemy is adjusting. But I'm going to tell you something. I'm doing the right thing. Washington is a town that says, you didn't connect the dots, and then when you do connect the dots, they say you're wrong."
Bush wants this to be like Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus. Well, a few points there. First, read what habeas corpus actually is:
A writ (court order) that commands an individual or a government official who has restrained another to produce the prisoner at a designated time and place so that the court can determine the legality of custody and decide whether to order the prisoner's release.Bush is comparing his domestic spying to taking away the right of American citizens to appear in court before a judge AFTER the government kidnaps you. Bush is assuming a few things here. First, bush is assuming that what Lincoln did was right at the time, that what Lincoln did would be right for today, and that what Lincoln was going through (the possible dissolution of our entire country, literally civil war) is the exact same thing in gravity as what we're going through trying to fight terrorists today (something that other countries have been fighting for decades, so it's not that novel and it's not something that you win in 4 to 5 years and then go to back to normal). Bush's domestic spying has no end in sight, and as the Republicans always like to tell us, once you create a federal program it never goes away. So, basically, Bush is saying that he'd be fine suspending the Constitution indefinitely.
Think about that, folks.
Bush is imposing no limit whatsoever on the powers he's asking for. A court won't review what he's doing, ever. Is that really the kind of country you want to live in from now on? Is it really the kind of country America is? Is it really the kind of country so many of us immigrated to over the past 200+ years in order to escape countries that, well, did exactly the same thing that the Republicans are now proposing?
Are we to really believe, as Bush and the Republicans are now telling us, that the Framers of the Constitution got it wrong. They had no idea what it was like to be in a country under imminent threat of attack? The men who wrote our Constitution never gave a thought to the possibility that America would ever face an enemy that could literally destroy our country?
That's absurd. And it also blows the "original intent" argument, the one the Republicans love to make, off the map. I thought the Framers of the Constitution were so wise that they prepared for every possibility? That no judge should ever second guess what the framers intended, as it's either in the Constitution or it's not. But now we're to believe that the Framers of the Constitution, the fathers of our country, weren't as smart as George Bush.
Think about that.
The Republicans want us to believe that George Bush knows better than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Now think again, really hard, about how willing you are to rescind the Constitution in order to fight George Bush's wars?
George Bush and today's Republican party leadership want to rescind key sections of the US Constitution INDEFINITELY. They want to do it in a way that gives George Bush full power to do what he pleases, and there will never EVER be judicial review of anything the federal government does that impinges on any of your constitutional rights.
War on terror or not - today's Republicans have no problem with this?
George Bush, John McCain, and all the other Republicans who are busy defending this administration believe that America was founded on a mistake. Our Constitution is flawed, they're telling us. Our system of government isn't up to the task. Our protections in the Bill of Rights are a weakeness rather than a strength.
George Bush, John McCain and the Republican party leaders are so afraid of facing an enemy that they are willing to throw everything America stands for out the window.
Tell me again how that makes you proud to be an American?
