The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration (Gary Hart)

[kpete]

3-27-06

The Founders Never Imagined a Bush Administration
By Joyce Appleby and Gary Hart
Joyce Appleby is professor emerita of history at UCLA and co-director of the History New Service. Gary Hart is a former U.S. senator and Wirth Chair in the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado, Denver.

George W. Bush and his most trusted advisers, Richard B. Cheney and Donald H. Rumsfeld, entered office determined to restore the authority of the presidency. Five years and many decisions later, they've pushed the expansion of presidential power so far that we now confront a constitutional crisis.

Relying on legal opinions from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Professor John Yoo, then working in the White House, Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander-in-chief in time of war. More recently the president has claimed that laws relating to domestic spying and the torture of detainees do not apply to him. His interpretation has produced a devilish conundrum.

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the "war on terror" is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this "war" can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution.

more at:
http://hnn.us/articles/23297.html

[mmonk]

1. Nice editorial article.

Easy to distribute among the sheeple and put so even they might could understand.

[Burning Water]

2. Sure they did.

One of the founders, I forget which, when asked by a citizen what kind of government the constitutional convention had given them, a republic or a monarchy, answered, "A republic, sir, if you can keep it". The founders were great students of mankind and built many safeguards into the Constitution as a barrier to encroachments upon liberty. But all barriers can be breached if no one is watching them.

And for the longest time, no one was watching the barriers to sound the alarm. Only in recent years has the job begun of sticking a finger in the dyke, and then reversing the many breaches of the constitution.

[Selteri]

3. That was Benjamin Franklin...

He was much more like Clinton - A womanizing man who reflects a lot of characteristics in common with the greatest politicians.

[Zenlitened]

4. K&R. "...they've pushed the expansion of presidential power so far...

... that we now confront a constitutional crisis."

Keep on saying it: CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS!

:grr: :mad: :nuke:

[chicofaraby]

5. Actually, they did realize that a BushCo could emerge.

That's why we have the 2nd amendment.

[AllieB]

6. If you ever read biographies or the writings of our Founding Fathers

you know they've been spinning in their graves for the past five years.

[Gman]

7. "common sense and good judgment of the American people"

as Jefferson put it, I'm afraid no longer exists.

[FloridaPat]

8. That might be another reason * invaded Iraq. Defenseless country.

Easy to keep things a mess for decades. Yes, the War on Terror isn't a real war. But the invasion of Iraq is. Notice how he kept mentioning he was a war president in 2004 and historically a war president has never been tossed out. And he sure can't have unity in Iraq, otherwise things would go great and US troops would have to come home and he would no longer be the war president.

[rman]

9. There are several hints indicating that some of them and

some of the early presidents did imagine.


Thomas Jefferson:
"Where it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Abraham Lincoln:
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. These United States of America can never be destroyed from forces outside its borders. If America falls, it will fall from within. Brought down by apathy. When good people do nothing, Anarchy reigns."

Franklin D Roosevelt:
"I am in favor of this Constitution, as flawed as it is, because we need good government and we need it fast. And this, properly enacted, will give us, for a space of years, such government.
It will fail, as all such constitutions have in the past, because of the essential corruption of the people. He pointed his finger at all the American people. And when the people become so corrupt, he said, we will find it is not a republic that they want but rather despotism - the only form of government suitable for such a people."


Many later presidents have seen the signs of approaching failure of the republic, of American democracy, and have commented on it. But i'll leave that for another thread.