President George W. Bush yesterday invoked the most sweeping claim of executive privilege ever seen. His office issued a statement saying the Justice Department won't ever be allowed to pursue contempt charges against White House officials, or former officials who refused to respond to subpoenas to testify. Congress is pursuing contempt charges against Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor for refusing to do so.
Should Congress issue the contempt charges they go to the U.S. Attorney for DC, an employee of the Department of Justice, for prosecution. Bush is saying he will not allow anyone in the DOJ to pursue such a case. This is the heart of the entire scandal: the politicization of Justice and Bush just proved to the American people he's guilty of these charges.
Is this a high crime and misdemeanor? It certainly seems to fall within the realm of a major cover up of crimes. According to The Washington Post:
Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."
"That's a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers," Rozell said. "What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all."
Our system of government is not one with an all powerful executive. It is filled with checks and balances, separations of power. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney think they ARE all powerful and above the law. The only course of action appropriate for Congress at this time would be articles of impeachment. The President then would have to defend his actions in a formal Congressional legal proceeding.
The system may still work if Democrats have the balls to do what now must be done. If not they will establish the supremacy of the President over Congress and the Courts. We cannot allow that.
I don't want to sound like Chicken Little here, but the genius of our American system of government is its checks and balances. Sure, sometimes things get unbalanced for a while, but the system is designed to reign in any branch of government which attempts to asert supremacy over the other two.
If the judicial branch of government has become so corrupt that it won't function as a check on the unconstitutional exercise of power by the exeutive branch, and if the legislative branch, under those circumstances, doesn't have the courage to impeach, then we have lost our constitutional form of government.
Posted by: Lee Levan | July 21, 2007 at 10:10 AM
The brilliance of brain wash was in the total take-over. It appears the first and only job requirement was allegiance to the cause - above and beyond morals, ethics, harm to others or even horror. Top it off with take-over of the forms of communication. I believe they have been cooking up this recipe for many years.
If Americans (and Christians) are so pacified and self-indulgent to accept it, don't they get what they deserve? which is the loss of respect and hatred of the rest of the world.
Yet still, we complain about the inconvenience of getting a passport. I'll quote from the news "it is just ridiculous that we have to put up with this" Guess that spoiled brat wouldn't much appreciate being an Iraqi refugee with no means of survival but prostitution or a 20-year old with no legs. Do we not get back what we put out?
Posted by: dl | July 21, 2007 at 11:10 PM