Bush and Executive Arrogance
The New York Times calls out Bush for his executive arrogance, as displayed this past week regarding Guantanamo and the NSA warrantless wiretapping program.
Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.
Bush's non-relenting invocation of the 9/11 attacks have been intended to instill the fear of terrorism in the heart of every American so that they passively accept his Administration's chipping away at our civil liberties, little by little, one by one, until there are precious few if any left, not comprehending that none of these power grabs have made us any safer. Or, as the Times, puts it:
To a disturbing degree, the horror of 9/11 became an excuse to take up this cause behind the shield of Americans' deep insecurity. The results have been devastating. Americans' civil liberties have been trampled. The nation's image as a champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners have been abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we know about, while other prisons operate in secret. American agents "disappear" people, some entirely innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands. Hundreds of innocent men have been jailed at Guantánamo Bay without charges or rudimentary rights. And Congress has shirked its duty to correct this out of fear of being painted as pro-terrorist at election time.
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