Good old constitutional crisis

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Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:02:45 -0600

Good old constitutional crisis

 

 

 

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1279

 

Columns

Molly Ivins

 

Good old constitutional crisis

December 19, 2005

 

AUSTIN, Texas -- Uh-oh. Excuse me. I'm so sorry, but we are having a

constitutional crisis. I know 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:

Damn the inconvenience, full speed ahead. On his own, without

consulting the 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 now 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 about this, 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. Never seem to be able to

distinguish between a terrorist and a vegetarian.

 

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. Why that justifies treating Unitarians like

Islamofascists is beyond me.

 

This is the same pattern we have seen with Bush when it came to the

Geneva Conventions for handling prisoners and to using 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.

 

Bush defended his actions Monday 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 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.

 

From my point of view, Bush has made one terrible decision after

another concerning national security, from how Homeland Security money

was spent to attacking Iraq. The New York Times is not responsible.

 

To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators

Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web

page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.