The President devoted yesterday's radio address to explaining why he vetoed the Intelligence bill Congress sent him. He concluded the address with the following gem:
We have no higher responsibility than stopping terrorist attacks. And this is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.
What are these practices that our terrorist-loving Congresscritters so nicely asked the President to abandon? They're nothing special - just you're run-of-the-mill-Spanish-Inquisition-torture-type-stuff.
It's frustrating enough watching the President of the United States fight tooth and nail to keep torture available to the CIA as an "interrogation technique" for use on suspected terrorists. More frustrating still is watching the President demonstrate that he is completely unaware of what his "highest responsibility" actually is. As a reminder, here's the oath that he swore, twice, "so help me God", when he was inaugurated:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
It's the Constitution you're supposed to be defending, Mr. Bush. The founders risked their lives to establish and defend that. Why should they expect any less from us?
- Log in to post comments
"They're nothing special - just you're run-of-the-mill-Spanish-Inquisition-torture-type-stuff."
Nobody expects the Bush Administration!
...I'll go stand in the corner now.
If you recall, Bush is the one who called the Constitution "A God damned piece of paper."
On that charge alone the son of a bitch should be dragged kicking and screaming from the White House.
I believe that you are abusing our CinC without reason. The operative phrase, here, is "...to the best of my ability,...". As a lazy half-wit, trailing a sense of entitlement like the tail on a skunk, the "best" of his ability sets the bar so low that even Hermes couldn't limbo under it.
I have wondered long and hard exactly what it is that Emperor Bush II believes that he is preserving, protecting, and defending.
He is neither as stupid as Democrats fatally think, nor as smart as his rump-state loyalists believe. But what DOES he believe, as oppose to pretend to believe?
When he first ran for Texas Governor, he was fast and clever on his feet in genuine debate and press conference, until some sly advisor told him to act like a dumb cowboy, and utter Bushisms rather than English. Hey, it worked for Eisenhower, didn't it?
But did he really believe that he was a "uniter, not a divider"? I can't tell.
When he first ran for President, he had more than a smidgen of genuinely Conservative positions, such as opposition to interventionism and nation-building.
On the other hand, he took the position that Jesus Christ was the most influential philosopher. Bush argued that he could simultaneously lower taxes, boost Military-Industrial Complex spending, and balance the budget. Anyone who thought otherwise was guilty of "fuzzy math."
We know that he disagreed with his mom, Barbara Bush, on the theological notion that good people go to heaven, even in pagan, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu. and the like. Emperor Bush II, backed by Billy Graham, insisted that only his flavor of fundamentalist Christianists experience the grace of God, and are admitted to Heaven, without passing through Gitmo/Limbo first.
I reasonably assumed that he intended, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend:
(1) the Nomenclatura who own the United States; said Upper Upper Class of Old Money including the Bush family, which had money and power for 3 centuries;
(2) the high and noble ideals of Skull & Bones, which was going to capture the White House in any case, and (to a lesser extent) Yale;
(3) Big Oil;
(4) Intelligent Design and other anti-Science medieval nonsense that is uncomfortably popular in the USA.
Yet, to my continued puzzlement, he seems to have violated each and every one of these expected planks in his real platform.
(1) In his 2nd term as Emperor, he cast out into the darkness those of his father's advisors who were in place to keep W from going completely nuts, thereby in fact repudiating his own family (as the tearful George Herbert Walker Bush seemed to be saying at the farewell speech for the smart Bush, Jeb, on his stepping down from Florida gubernator.
(2) He damaged American Intelligence (in the cloak & dagger sense) in a way that repudiates the covert history of Skull & Bones; and failed to follow in his grandfather's and father's Sports leadership at Yale, by being literally a cheerleader;
(3) I mean, did you see and hear him in Press conference show that he was surprised than anyone forecast $4/gallon gasoline, in a way that parallels his daddy's photo-op at a supermarket, not ever having seen or heard about laser bar code scanners; I mean don't oilmen Bush and Cheney have a clue about the end-users of their commodity, which some believe was the real reason that USA invaded and occupied Iraq to begin with?
(4) Okay, I guess that he is the most determined enemy of Science and Math in the history of the planet. I can't be objective, given that his (and Ted Kennedy's) No Child Left Behind Act forces me, as a former university and college professor, coauthor with Nobel laureates and others, with 2,500+ publications, presentations, and broadcasts to my credit, to submit to an expensive multi-year Credentialing process via a Teacher's College at night, to be a full-time public school teacher, albeit I am grudgingly allowed to be (and I love it) a part-time Substitute Teacher in the bankrupt state of California.
So, seriously, what it is that Emperor Bush II believes that he is preserving, protecting, and defending? History will judge. Unfortunately, we have to survive in the interim.
So the Constitution is a suicide pact?
Please don't slander the Spanish Inquisition. Their enhanced interrogation methods were based on soft cushions and a comfy chair.
"We have no higher responsibility than stopping terrorist attacks."
The leader of our nation, probably the most powerful human on earth, says this with a straight face. Not only is he not greeted by gales of laughter and incredulous triple-takes - a large proportion, perhaps a majority, of the population nods their heads in agreement. And not just the stereotypical gap-toothed no-nothings, but people at all levels of society and education and on both the liberal and conservative sides of the spectrum.
Welcome to America.
Did you just wake up from a coma? Your wingnut sound bite is about four years out of date.
Actually, if you look that evidence (bwahahahahaha, but I'm using "you" as a general form of address), you'll see, of course, that mortality rate, homicide rate, etc, are the lowest in countries with strong protections for human rights.
There is an association between use of torture and security - and it is a negative one.
So I guess not respecting the constitution is more likely to be the suicide pact.
when you have an individual,who wouldn't fly his plane over viet nam, hoping to pass his throne to an individual, who couldn't fly his plane over north viet nam, you know you've entered the twilight zone.when one thinks that waterboarding is a form of surfing and the other thinks,"i'll show you torture",you've reached the boundary of rational cognition. if the country wants to continue on this path,it will get what it deserves. however, it won't be anywhere near the price that our military in the field are paying and will continue to pay.this conflict is also a set of economic sanctions against the those living in the united states. people are losing access to health,education and welfare, time to stop.
Pardon me, I seemed to have stumbled into a meeting of the "hate America first" club.
How many of you support the 2nd amendment?