Don't annoy me with the law, I'm the Prez!

So there's this president sitting in an oval office when in walks...

'It's just a goddamned piece of paper' – - President Bush in November 2005, describing the Constitution of the United States.

By DOUG THOMPSON Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_7779.shtml

Reconstruction Revisionism

Before the war, we were promised by the Bush administration that Iraqi oil revenues would finance the bulk of their reconstruction.

Here’s Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on3/27/03:
"The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

Now we are being told that the oil revenues might not pay for any of the reconstruction – it’s completely up to the Iraqis.

Scott McClellan:
QUESTION: Iraq’s reconstruction costs — how much of that should be paid for by Iraq with its oil revenues?

MCCLELLAN: Well, Iraq’s oil revenues are for the Iraqi people. It is overseen by an Iraqi ministry and all those revenues go to help the Iraqi people.

McClellan later instructs the reporter to look for the National Strategy for Victory In Iraq because it “talks about the oil sector and the progress that’s being made there.” Actually, that document acknowledges “oil production is slightly down from a year ago.”

Maybe it’s appropriate for the United States to finance Iraqi reconstruction, but the administration should have been upfront with the American people from the beginning. U.S. taxpayers have already spent $18 billion on Iraqi reconstruction, with no end in sight.

Political Quotes that only a Mother could love

Tom DeLay on bipartisanship:
"We have a small faction, and they are a minority, who believe they are there to govern. Then there is the majority of us who believe that indeed we are there to govern but more importantly we are there to be an opposition to the Democratic philosophy and the only way to do that is through confrontation."

Tom DeLay offers a novel view of American federalism.
"I am the federal government."(Responding to a restaurant owner who told him to extinguish his cigar in accordance with the law of the federal government.) -Washington Post, May 15, 2003

Tom DeLay on What a Woman is Good For:
"A woman can take care of the family. It takes a man to provide structure. To provide stability." in an interview with conservative commentator Armstrong Williams

Tom DeLay asks, Whats wrong with toxins?
"It's never been proven that air toxics (sic) are hazardous to people." Houston Chronicle, October 27, 1990

Reality Bites

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works, anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality- judiciously, as you will- we'll act again, creating new realities, which you can study, too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do."
-- A senior Bush adviser summarizing the Bush team's way of thinking to journalist Ron Suskind in the summer of 2002

Just follow the law.

It is illegal under ALL circumstances--without exception, to wiretap inside the U.S. without a court order/warrant.

But, to accommodate the Govt's need to protect the U.S. from terrorism, the FISA Court was set up in the 1970's to give the spy agencies and the president the ability to wiretap AND THEN LATER (retroactively) get the court order to do so.

Well, Bush has decided that he can wiretap and NEVER have to ask the FISA court, even retroactively, for permission to wiretap.

THIS is how he broke U.S. law and violated the Constitution of the U.S.
All Bush had to do to NOT break the law was to ask FISA, afterwards, if he could do what he already did.

That was FOUR years ago. He still has not asked FISA for all the wiretaps he has ordered, and he has stated that he doesn't have to because, "he's the president."

Sorry, but even the president--especially the president is not ever, ever allowed to do whatever he wants. Plain and simple. Black and White. There is no Gray.