Thursday, January 06, 2005
It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Nixon
This blog is going on hiatus until Sunday, but this analysis of the Gonzales confirmation hearings today at Daily Kos ought to provide enough nightmare fuel to get all of us through 'til then. It's the most frightening thing I have read in a very long time. And I mean frightening, in the sphincter-clenching, oh-my-god sense.
The man who is going to be the nation's top law enforcement officer told the Senate Judiciary Committee--frequently--that he believes that if the president thinks a law is unconstitutional, then he can ignore it. If that is true, the rule of law is dead. The president becomes like a medieval monarch, who can do whatever he wants and dare somebody (like the courts) to try and stop him.
Just as only the bravest courtiers dared to speak the truth to the medieval monarch, so only the bravest around our king will dare speak the truth to him. Gonzales clearly doesn't think of himself as that kind of guy. He said he didn't believe it was his job as White House counsel (or that it will be his job as AG) to tell the president what he may not want to hear. So if the president wants to break the law, Gonzales doesn't believe it's his place to say he should not.
The last president who tried to act unilaterally in this way was Dick "If the president does it, it's not illegal" Nixon. But he did it in an era when the Democrats controlled the Congress and could make him pay. There is no such firewall today.
If every Democrat in the Senate voted against Gonzales, he would still be confirmed. And you can bet that maybe a dozen Democrats will give Bush cover for this awful nomination by voting for it. And then they will be complicit in whatever comes as a result of it. As one commenter to the Kos post put it: "I have the nasty feeling that there are some BIG things planned for the next 4 years. Getting this guy in as AG is foundational for future unilateral Presidential action."
But hell, we're all complicit for letting it get this far. As Mark Danner put it in the Times today, "We're all torturers now." By lacking the will to say no to Bush throughout his first term and last November 2, and by electing representatives without the courage to say no to him now, our hands help strap down the victims, unleash the dogs--inflict the pain. They're our victims. And so, perhaps we will deserve whatever bad things come our way in the future, as a consequence of our cowardice.
I want my goddamn country back.
This blog is going on hiatus until Sunday, but this analysis of the Gonzales confirmation hearings today at Daily Kos ought to provide enough nightmare fuel to get all of us through 'til then. It's the most frightening thing I have read in a very long time. And I mean frightening, in the sphincter-clenching, oh-my-god sense.
The man who is going to be the nation's top law enforcement officer told the Senate Judiciary Committee--frequently--that he believes that if the president thinks a law is unconstitutional, then he can ignore it. If that is true, the rule of law is dead. The president becomes like a medieval monarch, who can do whatever he wants and dare somebody (like the courts) to try and stop him.
Just as only the bravest courtiers dared to speak the truth to the medieval monarch, so only the bravest around our king will dare speak the truth to him. Gonzales clearly doesn't think of himself as that kind of guy. He said he didn't believe it was his job as White House counsel (or that it will be his job as AG) to tell the president what he may not want to hear. So if the president wants to break the law, Gonzales doesn't believe it's his place to say he should not.
The last president who tried to act unilaterally in this way was Dick "If the president does it, it's not illegal" Nixon. But he did it in an era when the Democrats controlled the Congress and could make him pay. There is no such firewall today.
If every Democrat in the Senate voted against Gonzales, he would still be confirmed. And you can bet that maybe a dozen Democrats will give Bush cover for this awful nomination by voting for it. And then they will be complicit in whatever comes as a result of it. As one commenter to the Kos post put it: "I have the nasty feeling that there are some BIG things planned for the next 4 years. Getting this guy in as AG is foundational for future unilateral Presidential action."
But hell, we're all complicit for letting it get this far. As Mark Danner put it in the Times today, "We're all torturers now." By lacking the will to say no to Bush throughout his first term and last November 2, and by electing representatives without the courage to say no to him now, our hands help strap down the victims, unleash the dogs--inflict the pain. They're our victims. And so, perhaps we will deserve whatever bad things come our way in the future, as a consequence of our cowardice.
I want my goddamn country back.
