[Mb-civic] the bush record

[IHHS at aol.com]

Dear A-Letter Reader: 
You may think the current President of the United States, the late King of  
France and the late Mayor of Jersey City, N.J. don't have much in common -- but 
 they do.  
Frank "Boss" Hague was Mayor of Jersey City from 1917 until his retirement  
under a cloud of scandal in 1947. His name is synonymous with early 20th 
century  big city American machine politics known as "bossism." Told by a 
subordinate  city employee that an order the Mayor issued could not be carried out 
because it  was illegal, Hague retorted with a phrase that became infamous -- "I am 
the  law!"  
More elegant and eloquent was the 17th century French monarch, Louis XIV  
(1638-1715), who is alleged to have said in reaction to those who wanted to  
maintain separation of powers with a guarantee of representative government in  
the parliament: " L'État c'est Moi!" -- "I am the State!"  
The finality of those words, spoken with a note of casual self-assurance,  
made clear the king's determination to have his way. As an absolute monarch,  
Louis XIV saw himself as personifying the state and through his deeds,  
demonstrated an impetuous disregard for representative government and the will  of the 
people. Louis believed that "his power was derived from God and that he  was 
responsible to God alone." Sound familiar?  
And now we come to the President of the United States of America, George  
Walker Bush, outlaw.  
The word "outlaw" suggests the American Wild West (maybe Texas?) and denotes, 
 according to the dictionary, a fugitive from the law or one who acts 
contrary to  or forbidden by law, as in an illegitimate seizure of power.  
Six months ago I wrote in this space about a report from a publication called 
 Capitol Hill Blue, concerning an event that was alleged to have occurred  in 
the White House Oval Office attended by congressional leaders discussing the  
extension of the PATRIOT Act. Many provisions of the Act, rushed through  
Congress only weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused so much concern  
that both liberal and conservative groups opposed renewal in the harsh form  
President Bush had demanded. (He won; they lost.)  
According to Capitol Hill Blue, Republican leaders told Bush that his  
unyielding push to renew the worst provisions of the Act without safeguards  could 
further alienate conservatives: "I don't give a goddamn," Bush is reported  to 
have said. "I'm the president and the commander-in-chief. Do it my way." "Mr.  
President," an aide in the meeting supposedly said; "There is a valid case 
that  some of the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution." "Stop 
throwing  the Constitution in my face," Bush retorted. "It's just a goddamned 
piece of  paper!"  
Now comes even more damning evidence that President Bush has intentionally  
claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took  
office, specifically asserting, (forget the U.S. Supreme Court), that he has the  
power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his  
interpretation of the Constitution. (See LINK below).  
While he has asserted this unprecedented power quietly many times, it came to 
 light with the disclosure of Bush's domestic spying program, in which he 
ignored  a law requiring judicial warrants to tap the telephones of Americans. He 
has  done this by filing "signing statements" - official documents in which a 
 president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal  
bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded  
in the Federal Register.  
David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in  
executive power issues, said Bush has cast a cloud over "the whole idea that  there 
is a rule of law," because no one can be certain of which laws Bush thinks  are 
valid and which he thinks he can ignore. A president who ignores the court,  
backed by a Congress that is unwilling to challenge him, Golove said, can make 
 the Constitution simply "disappear." (And what if you are the victim of  
this disappearing act?)  
Bruce Fein, a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration, said the  
American system of government relies upon the leaders of each branch "to  
exercise some self-restraint." But Bush has declared himself the sole judge of  
his own powers, he said, and then ruled for himself every time. "This is an  
attempt by the president to have the final word on his own constitutional  
powers, which eliminates the checks and balances that keep the country a  
democracy," Fein said. "There is no way for an independent judiciary to check  his 
assertions of power, and Congress isn't doing it, either. So this is moving  us 
toward an unlimited executive power."  
Or as Louis XIV or Boss Hague would have said: "I am the law!"  
That's the way that it looks from here, 
BOB BAUMAN, Editor  
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Cato Institute has just published an extensive report  
documenting the Bush Administration's ever-growing usurping of power. The report  
is titled, 
"Power Surge: The Constitutional Record of George W. Bush."  
To read the entire report, go to: 
_http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330_ (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6330)  

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