"Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap - it requires - a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talkin' about chasin' down terrorists, we're talkin' about gettin' a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand - when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland because we value the Constitution."
When the Pathologically Lying Law Breaker-in-Chief uttered those words, his secret NSA surveillance program (you know, the illegal, unconstitutional one where they conduct wiretaps without warrants) had already been active for almost three years. But that was before the whole world knew about it, so Bush was perfectly happy to let us all go on thinking that he actually was adhering to his oath of office and upholding the Constitution, when actually he had long since relegated that most sacred of American documents to toilet paper status.
Yesterday in Detroit, Dubya's absolute power grab got a much deserved and extremely important Constitutional smack down from U.S District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor.
In her 43 page decision, Taylor wrote "It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control." She went on to say "There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution, so all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution."
The difference, of course, is that the Judge wasn't lying.
And here's a shocker: Taylor is now being attacked by the Bush crowd as a partisan activist judge with an axe to grind. Rupert Murdoch's fascist fish wrap, the New York Post, in an editorial today titled "Jihad's Courtroom Win", called Taylor's decision an "overtly political ruling by a left-wing Michigan federal jurist". They also felt it necessary to go back almost 30 years to remind us that Taylor was "appointed by (who else?) Jimmy Carter."
As if the neocon chicken hawks running our country into the ground would never consider acting in a self-serving partisan manner themselves. Please. Self-serving partisanship is the only course these fortunate sons have ever known.
In response to the decision, Bush said today "I strongly disagree with that decision, strongly disagree", adding also that opponents of his Constitution-shredding policy "do not understand the nature of the world in which we live."
On the contrary, sir, we understand quite well.
We understand that you do not uphold the Constitution of the United States by systematically undermining it in an effort to achieve absolute power.
We understand, as Thom Hartmann so eloquently reminded his listeners this afternoon, that if James Madison didn't need to ignore the Constitution when the British invaded Washington and set fire to the White House in 1812, you don't need to ignore it to effectively protect America from terrorism today.
We understand that the only human success you will realize with the relentless, indiscriminate killing of innocent people, in the name of the unprecedented criminal fraud that is your "war on terror", is the success of convincing millions more to hate America.
We understand that, although your entire presidency can be accurately described as one massive, disingenuous statement, your boot licking Attorney General's claim that your illegal surveillance program "provides the United States with the early-warning system we so desperately needed on September 10th" (a claim with which you no doubt concur) is the perhaps the height or your administration's hypocrisy, given the fact that you ignored dozens of pre-9/11 warnings of a terrorist attack on America.
We understand that terrorism is indeed a very real worldwide threat (a threat growing by leaps and bounds thanks to you), but also that as long as it doesn't threaten you or anyone you care about, you don't care, as long as you have an excuse to continue and benefit from your bogus war.
We understand that the reason Osama bin Laden is still a free man five years after 9/11 is that you need a boogeyman to help you maintain the climate of fear that sustains your fraudulent presidency, and he needs a boogeyman to help him boost recruitment for his jihad. You might as well be business partners.
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