The Day the Constitution Died [View All]

The Day the Constitution Died
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
June 10, 2004
AUSTIN, Texas –

When, in the future, you find yourself wondering, "Whatever happened to the Constitution?" you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004. That was the day the attorney general of the United States – a.k.a. "the nation's top law enforcement officer" – refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with his department's memos concerning torture.

In order to justify torture, these memos declare that the president is bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties. We have put ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only difference being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown – forget that "no man is above the law" jazz. We used to talk about "the imperial presidency" under Nixon, but this is the real thing.

The Pentagon's legal staff concurred in this incredible conclusion. In a report printed by The Wall Street Journal, "Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department. ...

"The report outlined U.S. laws and international treaties forbidding torture, and why those restrictions might be overcome by national security considerations or legal technicalities."

More....

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18919

* Hopefully the nation and the DUers can get back to the real business of Amerika real soon after this Raygoon Revision of History mania.