“When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.” Richard Nixon
Today’s top story in The New York Times:
The Bush administration, in what appears to be a concession to its critics, said today it will allow an independent court to monitor its electronic-eavesdropping program.
…
Mr. Gonzales’s letter, to Senators Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the new committee chairman, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, states that “any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
And that’s not all he had to say. He also prepared a speech that outlines “what qualities the Bush administration looks for when selecting candidates for the federal bench.”
“We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments,” Gonzales says in the prepared speech. “That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country.”
Uh huh… that’s right Albert. Judges may not have access to the intelligence information available to the president or to members of congress. THAT’S NOT THEIR JOB YOU IDIOT!
That’s how we teach older, slower learning students what we think they should already know. We yell. And after calming down, we walk them through the lesson… start with a question…
And what is their job? (You’d think the Attorney General would know, but I guess he doesn’t, so we help him out.) Hmmm… could it be that the job of the judges is to make sure that our laws comply with The Constitution and that elected officials sworn to uphold the laws follow the laws? Yes, I think that’s it.
You see Albert, we have this thing in America we like to call “separation of powers.” No matter what you or your boss says, you guys in the White House can’t choose the laws you think you should follow and ignore the rest of them. You’ve got to follow all of them. We have other branches of government that are supposed to watch you and make sure that you do.
You obviously weren’t following the laws before. A federal judge ruled that you guys broke the law, and all that you, Bush and Cheney had to say was “Neener Neener Neener! You can’t catch me!”
Now, after more than a year tossing out sloppy legal arguments for why you are exempt from FISA, suddenly you guys say that you are going to start following the laws. What you do now does not excuse you from what you did in the past. Only a pardon can do that.
Nixon got away with his crimes. Will Bush?
That’s a question for Congress to answer.
Well? We’re waiting…
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