The American CaesarTime to Hold
Bush and Cheney Accountable
By Ralph Nader
04/12/06 "Nader.org"
-- -- In the name of fighting stateless
terrorism, George W. Bush is looming as the American Caesar
running roughshod over the civil liberties of the American
people who have turned against him in ever larger majorities.
In the name of fighting terrorism, George W. Bush fabricated
numerous excuses for illegally invading Iraq and occupying it
for now over three costly years in ways that are magnets for the
recruitment and training of ever more stateless terrorists. His
own CIA Director, Porter Goss, made exactly this point in
testimony before the U.S. Senate in February 2005. So too have
many retired intelligence and military specialists including
those who recently worked for George W. Bush.
More and more evidence of the workings of Caesar Bush are coming
to public light. Just this week, in court filings by the
prosecutor against the indicted I. Lewis Libby Jr., Dick
Cheney's right hand man, another thunderbolt came forth. Mr.
Libby testified that, in the words of The New York Times, "Mr.
Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a
threat to national security" himself approved Libby leaking just
such information to the press in order to rebut a critic.
Democratic Senate Leader, Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said
that "in light of today's shocking revelation, President Bush
must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking
of classified information," calling the President "the leaker in
chief."
Not that the Democrats will do anything about this latest
outrage, but the Republicans in the Congress are reaching
certain limits to their self-censored sycophancy toward Caesar
Bush. Also this week, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told
a House Committee that the President may have the legal
authority even to wiretap communications between Americans
inside the United States without a court order. When pressured
for his authority behind such breathtaking outlawry, he fell
back on his usual Caesarean mantra - "his inherent [the
President's] role as commander in chief." Sounds like the modern
version of the "divine right of Kings".
This was too much even for the House Judiciary Chair, Republican
F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr. (R-Wisconsin), who accused the Bush
administration of "stonewalling".
Unbridled Presidential authority is un-American whether in
peacetime, wartime or fighting a gang whose exaggerated power
has served Bush and Cheney very well politically. How better to
silence the Democrats, stifle or chill public dissent, distract
attention from domestic necessities, until their post-Katrina
debacle, enrich their donating corporate buddies with military
contracts and concentrate more lawless power in the White House
at the expense of the courts and Congress than by breaking our
constitutional system of separation of powers?
Mr. Bush gave the "Go" signal for the leak without going through
a conventional declassification process to determine how such
"information might compromise methods or sources," according to
Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University
Law School.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) summed the leak up this way:
If the [Bush] administration believes it can tap purely domestic
phone calls between Americans without court approval, there is
no limit to executive power. This is contrary to settled law and
the most basic constitutional principles of the separation of
powers.
Still the Democrats do not have the modest fortitude to support
Senator Russell Feingold's (D-Wisconsin) modest motion to
censure George W. Bush. The Democrats are waiting for more
incriminating material to spill out from the Executive Branch to
add to the mounds of evidence already made public from U.S. and
British sources.
For sure more will spill out. Whenever there are court cases
like Libby's, where the defendant wants to defend only himself,
there will be more damaging memos, emails, testimony and maybe
confessions. When an awakened mainstream media is hungry in
pursuit of such stories, you can be sure more will come out.
Inside contacts and sources will increase. Retirements will
increase as well to produce more whistleblowers.
If the House and Senate start exercising their constitutional
rights to oversight, more power will be added to extract
information from the gold mines of what Bush and Cheney did and
when prior and after the invasion of Iraq.
At some point the Bush regime's luck, bred by secrecy, cover-ups
and mendacity, will run out. The critical mass will be reached.
And the American Caesar will fall, with or without the
assistance of the pitiful Democrats.
Writing about the Democratic Primary race in Connecticut between
Senator Joseph Lieberman and Ned Lamont, who calls the incumbent
"Bush's favorite Democrat", Keith C. Burris of the Manchester,
Connecticut Journal Inquirer declares, "Even in wartime, the
power of government must be checked; even in wartime the
president is not a law unto himself; even in wartime the people
deserve to be informed by the free exchange of ideas. Even in
wartime, the citizens may seek to change the government."
Especially during an unconstitutional, illegal war in Iraq
started by George W. Bush! See http://www.DemocracyRising.US for
more information.
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