Balkinization  

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Strange Days

JB

So the President, as best I can tell, has repeatedly violated federal law by spying on American citizens in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Congress, controlled by his own party, responds not by demanding an investigation into the matter, but rather by asking meekly whether it might amend the statute so that whatever the President has been doing (which he won't actually tell us) could become legal. The President says, not really necessary, don't you fools realize that when I act as Commander-in-Chief I can't violate the law? And if you insist that I did, well then, your laws are just plain unconstitutional. A Democratic Senator then stands up and argues that if the President broke the law repeatedly, he should be censured, if not impeached. Everybody else makes fun of him. At this point the Republicans, who lined up almost as one to impeach the previous (Democratic) president for lying about sex to a grand jury, while making impassioned speeches about the rule of law, are now delighted by this development, using the fact that the Senator is talking about censure as an opportunity to fire up their base.

So children, here's the moral of the story: If you are the President, feel free to violate the law, early and often. Just make sure you do it when your party controls all three branches of government. Because just as blood is thicker than water, party is thicker than law.


Comments:

". . .amend the statute so that whatever the President has been doing (which he won't actually tell us) could become legal."

Article I, Section 9:

No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Any relevance?
 

I think its possible that there are side effects other than weakening the rule of law. In the eyes of the rest of the world, its possible that the nation as a whole has come to appear more hypocritical, and I also think its possible that the president has lost a degree of trustworthyness before other nations, since he so openly violates the laws of his own nation.

Now the Saudi government is openly supporting a what GB calls a 'terrorist organization' (Hamas), and where once GB declared 'you're with us or against us', he is now silent. It just seems to me that along with a host of other things, openly disrespecting the laws of his own country has left him considerably wanting in the amount of leadership he can excercise in the world.
 

What rule of law? Show me a Democrat who actually cares whether a power they want the federal government to exercise is actually delegated to the federal government by the Constitution, and I'll start listening to whining about "the rule of law". Until you're willing to uphold the highest law of the land even when it says you can't do something you want to do, it's all just partisanship.

Oh, and Clinton SIGNED the law making that testimony manditory, in case you forgot. He who lives by the stupid law, should die by it.
 

There is no bar to giving retroactive effect to an ameliorative change in a staute. The Courts due it all the time. And legislatures too in response to sweeping opinions. Sometimes persons convicted under the earlier statute get compensated as well.
 

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