Here's a story that would gag a maggot

oh, puh-l-e-e-e-e-eze...

President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he quit playing golf in 2003 out of respect for the families of Americans killed in the war in Iraq.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf," Bush said in an interview with Yahoo and Politico.com.

"I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said.

Bush said his last round of golf was in August 2003 when he was informed that a truck bomb had wrecked the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello.

"They pulled me off the golf course and I said, it's just not worth it anymore to do," Bush said.

if that's the truth - and i have my doubts - a bigger person would never have told anyone... what are we supposed to do...? give george a medal or a chest to pin it on...?

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"Bush doctrine: The president as commander in chief can do whatever he wants regardless of Congress"

simply put...

[T]he Bush doctrine: The president as commander in chief can do whatever he wants regardless of Congress. There must be no checks and balances, no accountability. There must be no disclosure to other branches of government, whether legislative or judicial. Oral findings, or, if necessary, secret memos, make the illegal legal merely by saying they are legal in the name of presidential authority. The operational need to know determines who knows.

i don't think dick cheney or david addington would disagree...

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"The Constitution cannot enforce itself" and George Bush as “the foetus of monarchy”

thanks to the liberal doomsayer who pointed me to this fine piece by adam cohen in today's nyt...

Given how intent the president is on expanding his authority, it is startling to recall how the Constitution’s framers viewed presidential power. They were revolutionaries who detested kings, and their great concern when they established the United States was that they not accidentally create a kingdom. To guard against it, they sharply limited presidential authority, which Edmund Randolph, a Constitutional Convention delegate and the first attorney general, called “the foetus of monarchy.”

[...]

When they drafted the Constitution, Madison and his colleagues wrote their skepticism into the text. In Britain, the king had the authority to declare war, and raise and support armies, among other war powers. The framers expressly rejected this model and gave these powers not to the president, but to Congress.

The Constitution does make the president “commander in chief,” a title President Bush often invokes. But it does not have the sweeping meaning he suggests. The framers took it from the British military, which used it to denote the highest-ranking official in a theater of battle. Alexander Hamilton emphasized in Federalist No. 69 that the president would be “nothing more” than “first general and admiral,” responsible for “command and direction” of military forces.

The founders would have been astonished by President Bush’s assertion that Congress should simply write him blank checks for war. They gave Congress the power of the purse so it would have leverage to force the president to execute their laws properly.

[...]

The Constitution cannot enforce itself.

[...]

Members of Congress should not be intimidated into thinking that they are overstepping their constitutional bounds. If the founders were looking on now, it is not Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi who would strike them as out of line, but George W. Bush, who would seem less like a president than a king.

we've just got to keep the drumbeat for getting rid of these people going strong... i first started banging my drum during hurricane katrina, not that i was exactly a bush supporter prior to that, but, for me, that was the last straw... for the umpteenth million time, our republic is in serious danger, and it is up to us to see that it changes course...

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Robert Parry on our fragile republic

robert parry writes on just how precarious the decision on al-marri really is and how bush might still have his claim to unfettered power upheld in the courts...

By a two-to-one margin, a federal appeals court has repudiated George W. Bush’s right to snatch a civilian off the streets of America and hold the person indefinitely without trial. But the makeup of the three-judge panel was a fluke, with two Clinton appointees comprising the majority.

The proportion of Republican appointees to Democrats on the full U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, is the opposite, eight-to-four Republican. So, the Bush administration retains high hopes that the full court will agree to review the case of Ali al-Marri and grant the President the authority he wants.

The case, which tests the limits of Bush’s claims to “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief, eventually is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court where Bush has four of nine justices solidly in his corner – Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Assuming the roster of the Supreme Court remains the same, the swing vote is expected to be Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is considered a loyal Republican – the author of the December 2000 ruling awarding Bush the White House – but who has objected to some elements of Bush’s expansive presidential authority.

[...]

Civil libertarians hailed the al-Marri ruling as a significant defeat for Bush’s vision of an imperial presidency. But the fragility of the judicial consensus holding the line against the President's "plenary" powers signals that the battle to sustain the Founders’ vision of a Republic based on the rule of law and recognizing “certain unalienable rights” is far from over.

i was extremely gratified to see any court anywhere in the land standing up for our constitution and the historical principles of our judicial process, something it seems that the bush administration is dead-set on destroying... no, we aren't out of the woods, not by a long shot, but a step at a time is better than nothing...

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Placing Iraq in the framework of the U.S. Constitution

i confess to not being george lakoff's greatest fan... the obsession with "framing" cuts a little too close to neuro-linguistic programming for my comfort... however, that said, the following makes perfect sense...

The Framers of the Constitution framed the current debate over Iraq: Congress sets the overall strategy, and retains control over troop levels, redeployment dates, etc. The president's job is to carry out the strategic mission set by Congress.

The United States Constitution designates Congress as The Decider: they decide on overall military strategy. That is their constitutional duty. The president is the commander in chief of the military — and only the military. He is not commander over Congress, nor is he commander over the people of the United States. As such, the president's duty is to carry out the strategic mission given to him by Congress.

But Congress has abdicated its duty.

Congressional leaders have neglected to remind the nation what the Constitution says. They have allowed the president to reframe the Constitution, usurping their power for himself. The Framers framed it right. The Congress irresponsibly let the president reframe the Constitution.

ACTION: Write to your Congresspersons and Senators and ask them to frame their Constitutional role as the Framers did. We suggest that you raise the following issues:

• The Constitution provides Congress with the power to define the military agenda, including troop re-deployment and the establishment of timetables.

• The role of the president is to carry out the agenda defined by Congress.

• Congress must continuously assert its Constitutional power and responsibility.

• Congress must not give in to the betrayal myth. The president was offered funding with timetables but he turned it down — he is the betrayer.

• Congress must frame the matter as an issue of Constitutional authority

• Congress must place the safety of the troops directly in the hands of the commander-in-chief, whose job is to carry out the agenda given by Congress, which includes protecting the safety of our troops.

this certainly cuts through a lot of the b.s... what i like best about it is that it shoots the unitary executive theory and the claim of the all-powerful commander in chief directly in the head...

note: in the full article, solid constitutional arguments are cited which i haven't included here...

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I believe that the Bush administration welcomes terrorism

there could be no other explanation for the strategy the administration has consistently followed... fanning the flames of anti-american sentiment through the continuing occupation of iraq serves many objectives - keeping the fear threshold high, running the defense and armaments machine at full speed, retaining the prerogatives of a wartime commander-in-chief, allowing the construction of military bases and the embassy complex to move forward, staying in control of iraqi energy resources, and insuring that swollen rivers of cash are flowing into the right pockets...

Thursday morning CBS News's Early Show criticized President Bush's latest justification for the Iraq War as being the first line of defense against al Qaeda, by citing an upcoming Senate Intelligence Committee report which states that the administration was warned before the invasion that a US presence in Iraq would actually increase terrorist influence.

[...]

When asked directly, "Is the United States winning the war on terror?" [analyst Paul Kurtz] immediately responded, "without a doubt no" and added that "our continued engagement in Iraq is spawning more terrorist activity."

in bushco's view, what's NOT to like about an ever-increasing threat of terrorism...?

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Article II and Amendment 4 of the U.S. Constitution vs. the extraordinary claims of George Bush

are we clear now on why bush nominated mcconnell to replace negroponte...?

Senior Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they believe the president still has the constitutional authority to continue his domestic wiretapping program without first seeking court approval.

"Senior U.S. administration officials have told the U.S. Congress that they could not promise that the Bush administration would fulfill its January pledge to continue to seek warrants from a secret court for a domestic wiretapping program," reports the International Herald Tribune.

In January, the administration agreed to seek court-approved warrants for all wiretaps of US citizens and other living inside the US.

But during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, told Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI), that he could not promise that Bush would always seek warrants for domestic wiretaps.

"Sir, the president's authority under Article II is in the Constitution," McConnell said. "So if the president chose to exercise Article II authority, that would be the president's call."

what mr. mcconnell is saying, in effect, is that the president has chosen to interpret the united states constitution in a manner that suits his purposes... we are way, way past due to have this constitutional interpretation put to the test... the sooner we resolve this constitutional question and face up to the constitutional crisis our country has been experiencing since the coup d'etat was installed by the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, the sooner we can get on with our lives...

The United States Constitution

Article. II. - The Executive Branch

Section 1 - The President

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected...

[...]

Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

article II does not make mention of the president's authority to undertake warrantless domestic spying activities... however, amendment 4 to the constitution definitely does, and not in its favor...

Amendment 4 - Search and Seizure. Ratified 12/15/1791.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

can we please get this settled...? like tomorrow...?

meanwhile, let's not forget article II, section 4...

Section 4 - Disqualification

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

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