Thursday, March 5, 2009

George W. Bush’s Disposable Constitution

Scott Horton in Harper's:

Yesterday the Obama Administration released a series of nine previously secret legal opinions crafted by the Office of Legal Counsel to enhance the presidential powers of George W. Bush. Perhaps the most astonishing of these memos was one crafted by University of California at Berkeley law professor John Yoo. He concluded that in wartime, the President was freed from the constraints of the Bill of Rights with respect to anything he chose to label as a counterterrorism operations inside the United States.

John Yoo’s Constitution is unlike any other I have ever seen. It seems to consist of one clause: appointing the President as commander-in-chief. The rest of the Constitution was apparently printed in disappearing ink.

We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. (my em)

It's not news to a lot of us, but thank you for finally noticing it in print now that it's safe.

That last sentence was unfair to Mr. Horton. Yes, we knew BushCo was shredding the Constitution. We didn't begin to know the exact details until these memos came out. I think it's the tip of the iceberg.

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