The Ten Most Preposterous Bushie Legal Arguments of 2007

The Ten Most Preposterous Bushie Legal Arguments of 2007
Scott Horton - Dec 31, 2007 - http://harpers.org/archive/2007/12/hbc-90002073


For legal commentators, the Bush White House and Justice Department are the gift that just keeps giving. Never before has such a torrent of inanities and absurdities gushed forth from official apertures. It’s the sign of a government that truly disdains the rule of law, indeed, it hates law almost as much as it hates law enforcement and lawyers. Is anyone making the Herculean attempt to catalogue them all? Dahlia Lithwick produces a real gem over at Slate. Here’s a sampling:

* The NSA’s eavesdropping was limited in scope.

Not at all. Recent revelations suggest the program was launched earlier than we’d been led to believe, scooped up more information than we were led to believe, and was not at all narrowly tailored, as we’d been led to believe. Surprised? Me neither.

The corollary: trotting out men in uniform to say it doesn’t make it any less of a falsehood. And it dishonors the uniform they wear. (This means you, General Hayden and Admiral McConnell).

...........

But what comes in as number one. That’s right, the unchallenged most unbelievable legal assertion made by President Bush, himself, over and over and over:

The United States does not torture.

First there was the 2002 torture memo. That was withdrawn. Then there was the December 2004 statement that declared torture “abhorrent.” But then there was the new secret 2005 torture memo. But members of Congress were fully briefed about that. Except that they were not. There was Abu Ghraib. There were the destroyed CIA tapes. So you see, the United States does not torture. Except for when it does.

Bush has made America the torture nation in the eyes of the world. ....

:puke:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/005010.php

By Paul Kiel - January 3, 2008, 9:43AM

The eight year Constitutional law seminar that is the Bush Administration continues!

Today's lesson: the pocket veto.

Last week, the president claimed to have sunk Congress' defense authorization bill by pocket veto. Now Democrats are saying he can't do that.

We'll start first with the Constitution says, and then go on to what the Bush administration says it says.

Article I, section 7 of the Constitution says that the president must sign or veto legislation passed by Congress within ten days (not counting Sundays). If he signs it, it becomes law. If he vetoes it, then Congress can override his veto with a two-thirds majority in both houses. And if he does not sign or veto it while Congress is in session, it becomes law. But if Congress is not in session and he doesn't sign it, then it neither becomes law nor can Congress override it. The bill is dead. That's a pocket veto.

So on December 28th, the president proclaimed that the defense authorization bill was dead by pocket veto. (For some background on the substance of the dispute -- why Bush doesn't like the bill and Dems' frustration with the fact that the administration didn't raise the objection until after the bill passed -- see here.) Congress will just have to start over. Keep in mind that the bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities.

But, as Kagro X at Daily Kos first pointed out, there's a problem with that. Though the president said that "adjournment of Congress" allowed him to pocket veto, Congress was not, in fact, in adjournment.

To prevent administration monkey business during the holiday recess, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) kept the Senate in pro forma session throughout.....

......... the whole thing could end up in court. That's probably not something the administration wants to happen. The pocket veto seems to be an executive power which, like executive privilege, is very infrequently tested in court. But with this administration's fervent belief in the executive's power, you never know.

Do we have our first contestant for the Bush Administration's dumbest legal arguments of 2008?

But I'm sure we wont have to wait long for an '08 attempt. :)