The law applies to
each of us
By MOLLY IVINS,
Columnist, Star-Telegram.com, From the Web, December 22, 2005
AUSTIN -- I'm so sorry, but we
are having a constitutional crisis. The timing couldn't be worse.
Right in the middle of the wrapping paper, the gingerbread and the whole
shebang, a tiny honest-to-goodness constitutional crisis.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
On his own, without consulting the full Congress, the courts or the people, the
president decided to use secret branches of government to spy on the American
people. He is, of course, using 9-11 to justify his actions in this, as he
does for everything else -- 9-11 happened so the Constitution does not apply,
9-11 happened so there is no separation of powers, 9-11 happened so 200 years of
experience curbing the executive power of government is something we can
overlook.
That the president of the United States unconstitutionally usurped power is not
in dispute. He and his attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, both claim he
has the right to do so on account of he is the president.
Let's try this again: The president is not above the law. I wish I
thought I were being too pompous, but the greatest danger to our freedom always
comes when we are scared or distracted -- and right now, we are both.
As an ACLU liberal, I would like to say how proud and honored I am to stand with
so many American conservatives on this issue. You do credit to all your
heroes. Barry Goldwater would be so proud.
One of the more annoying things about this usurpation of power is that it is
both stupid and unnecessary. As large numbers of people have pointed out,
it takes almost nothing to get a warrant to do what Bush has been doing
illegally -- it's almost pro forma.
Here is a curious fact about the government of this country spying on its
citizens: It always goes wrong immediately. For some reason, it's
not as though we start with people anyone would regard as suspicious and then
somehow slip gradually into spying on the Girl Scouts. We get it wrong
from the beginning every time.
The Department of Defense has just proved this yet again with its latest folly
of mistaking a flock of Florida Quakers for a threat to overthrow the
government. A few months ago, a student at the University of Massachusetts
at Dartmouth tried to check out a copy of Mao's Little Red Book and wound up
being interviewed by two feds. Cointelpro and all those misbegotten
Nixon-era spy programs were always making ludicrous mistakes.
The usual suspects, like that silly congressman Dan Burton, solemnly try to
scare us with the dread specter of war, as though they alone are the hard-headed
pragmatists, while only woolly-minded liberals care about the Constitution.
"Don't these people realize we're at war?" Well, yes.
This is the same pattern we have seen with Bush when it came to the Geneva
Conventions for handling prisoners and to the use of torture. Not only
does he consider himself above the law, he has surrounded himself with people
who keep inventing perverse readings of the Constitution to justify him.
Makes it especially nice to hear him go on about the importance of bringing
democracy to Iraq.
On Monday, Bush defended his actions by saying it was part of "connecting the
dots." A painful moment, since the 9-11 Commission just finished giving
this administration grades of D and F in terms of preventing another terrorist
attack -- and it has jack-all to do with wiretapping. This administration
has cried wolf so many times using the national security excuse that it has lost
all credibility.
Bush just could not resist that especially nasty little fillip at the end:
blaming the people who reported the problem. As though the sin were
telling the people of this country what is happening, what is being done in our
name with our money. As though we have no right to know.
Bush has made one terrible decision after another, from how Homeland Security
money was spent to attacking Iraq. The New York Times is not
responsible.
Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate.
5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045.
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