US Diary: Goddam Bush

Comedian Bill Maher gives Bush an earful: "You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side."

1. Our Monarch, Above the Law -- by Scott Lehigh

Has George W. Bush come to believe he's King?

That's the question that springs to mind upon reading Charlie Savage's front-page report in Sunday's Globe detailing the president's sotto voce assertion that he can disregard laws if he thinks they impinge on his constitutional powers.

That novel claim resides in the ''signing statements" the administration issues outlining its legal interpretation of laws the president has signed -- interpretations that often run contrary to the statute's clear intent.

As Savage reports, Bush has registered hundreds of those reservations, adding them to statutes on subjects ranging from military rules and regulations to affirmative action language to congressionally mandated reporting requirements to protections Congress has passed for whistle-blowers to legal assurances against political meddling in government-funded research.

Bush's position reduces to this: The president needn't execute the laws as they are written and passed, but rather, has the right to implement -- or ignore -- them as he sees fit. (Were it not for our pesky written Constitution, perhaps George II could take his cue from Charles I, dismiss Congress, and rule -- ah, govern -- without any legislative interference whatsoever.)

Even members of the president's own party have balked at that claim.

After Republican Senator John McCain succeeded in passing a ban on the torture of detainees in US custody, forcing it upon an unwilling White House, the president's signing statement made it clear he thought he could disregard the law if he deemed it necessary. That brought a pointed rebuke from McCain and fellow Republican Senator John Warner.

Other presidents have periodically appended signing statements to legislation, setting the objectionable precedent that Bush has followed here. But as Savage reports, this president has taken it to a new level, issuing such statements on more than 750 laws, or on more than 10 percent of the bills he has signed.

Rendering Bush's assertion more worrisome is this reality: Because so much of what this administration does is shrouded in secrecy, it's hard to know which laws are being followed and which are being ignored.

That makes it difficult for matters to ripen into a court challenge, notes Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate. ''He is setting it up so that the people hurt by what this administration is doing are unable to get to court, because it is secret," Silverglate says.

We certainly do know that this president is ready to ignore even established laws if he finds them too cumbersome. Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 prohibits warrantless eavesdropping on Americans, Bush has authorized such snooping. In trying to justify that, the administration has claimed that Congress's post-Sept. 11 resolution authorizing force against terrorists somehow imparted the authority for warrantless wiretapping.

That's farfetched, and members of the president's own party have said as much.

Congressional figures of both parties have signaled a willingness to consider the president's concerns with a wiretap-approval process that is already all but pro forma.

The White House, however, has displayed little interest in meaningful compromise.

Bush has a recourse if he doesn't agree with a newly passed law, of course: He can veto it. (So far he hasn't exercised that prerogative even once.)

But the president shouldn't be allowed to quietly disregard or reinterpret provisions of a law he dislikes, for in doing so, he is not protecting his own authority, but rather usurping the legitimate power of Congress. Further, his assumption that it is within his purview to decide whether a law is constitutional treads on ground that is the clear province of the Supreme Court.

Thus far, the Republican congressional leadership has been dismayingly compliant. But one Republican unwilling to let Bush interpret the law as he sees fit is Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Specter, who is pushing legislation to have the closed-door FISA court rule on the constitutionality of Bush's wiretapping program, noted last week that he had filed -- but would not seek an immediate vote on -- an amendment to block funding for any domestic eavesdropping until the administration provides Congress with much more information.

It speaks volumes about the attitude of this White House that a member of the president's own party would have to make such a move to protect bedrock constitutional principles.

Yet it will probably take something much more dramatic than Specter's tentative threat to remind George W. Bush that he's president, and not king.


2. Why Impeachment is Essential -- by Bill C. Davis

Say it and you’re told it won’t happen.

There’s a conscious rage and an unconscious self-defeating deference to the absoluteness of the power that caused the rage. Whether we know it or not we are devastated by that realization.

Impeachment: Impossible – stop thinking about it. Translated: We don’t matter. They know it and we know it. The “leaders” that perhaps, and in not a few minds, most likely, rigged two national elections, quite possibly allowed 9/11, definitely invaded Iraq and lied to do so, depleted the US treasury – or more specifically, redistributed the treasury to internal, private and corporate allies, sanctioned torture and domestic spying – those people can never be impeached or even investigated.

If we felt we owned the house, we’d say get out. But we don’t feel we own the house. We are reduced to squatters, who will grumble and pay fees for the plot of land allowed us, but we know now the land isn’t ours. We know the government and its treasury isn’t ours. So when someone says impeach – ie. evict – the response, even from the people who say it, is - not gonna happen.

But impeachment is essential. It is the remedy for, if one believes in it, the national soul. I think there is such a thing and it has material and physical manifestations. When it’s sick it demonstrates symptoms – when it’s healthy it yields harvests.

A legal and constitutional purge will return the sense of citizen ownership and spiritual health that was robbed along with election 2000. With that first theft all other thefts flowed. No - the clock can’t be turned back – dead soldiers can’t be brought back to life – flesh and blood limbs won’t grow back – the money to war profiteers most likely won’t be returned to the treasury – but the national soul, spirit, libido – whatever name we give the invisible American essence – that can be resuscitated and revived. And for that to begin to happen – impeachment is essential.

We are being surrounded by a world that doesn’t trust us anymore. They aren’t all hostile to us – they’ve lost faith in the power of the American people – and right to the point, as evidenced by comments such as “he should be impeached but it’s not going to happen” - we have lost faith in our own power.

It’s not personal. It’s not about how much we are embarrassed by or don’t like Bush. It has nothing to do with individual animosity and everything to do with collective power. When exit polls don’t match the official tally it doesn’t automatically mean that the time honored system of exit polls is suddenly unreliable, or that, as we were told, spouses were afraid to admit in front of each other who they voted for. It means something darker and more challenging. The American people did not take the challenge – we did what the coup expected we would do and we have been doing it ever since – until now.

We are at the “until now” moment. Democratic party leaders are uncomfortable talking about it. They think strategy. Impeachment is not a strategy. It’s a citizen action – a national correction – a collective redemption – an honest recall. It may happen city by city – state by state – but the body politic has the right, need, obligation to impeach.

"It’ll be over soon," is not good enough. "We’re at war," is no excuse. The war, as is now apparent, does not need, does not have, the president’s attention or wisdom. His job on that front is done – he sent the troops in. That was his role as defined by the Constitution and commandeered by criminality. The war is no longer his to orchestrate or end so if he goes, the war won’t notice, except in one way.

Extremist forces may not change their agenda toward us but the angry disappointed moderate elements may reconsider. Proving to that section of the world population that America is of, by and for the people will encourage them to act as blockades against violent reactionary elements. Impeachment could well be the secret weapon in our national defense. Impeachment could be the ultimate bunker buster that will purge the leadership that the world wants to get at, through us. Impeachment could move us from being collateral targets to active citizens.

The well-protected architects of this government’s suicidal policies are indifferent to what makes us safe. Anyone who talks so much about keeping us safe reveals something quite opposite. What are they trying to convince us of? And why do we believe them?

At the protest at inauguration 2001 there were mink coats, Stetson hats and lots of parties with lots of beef – and in the streets a feeling of free fall. It was just gonna happen – all of it – whatever lurked behind the front called GW Bush was going to happen even after we knew the majority didn’t ask for it. The free fall is still going on but instead of waiting for the hard landing – we can take the land and instead of falling on our backs, we can stand. But to do that – impeachment is essential.

(Bill C. Davis is a playwright - www.billcdavis.com)


3. Three Democrats Slam President over Defying Statutes
Say he cannot claim powers above the law
by Charlie Savage

WASHINGTON - Three leading Democratic senators blasted President Bush yesterday for having claimed he has the authority to defy more than 750 statutes enacted since he took office, saying that the president's legal theories are wrong and that he must obey the law.

''We're a government of laws, not men," Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said in a statement. ''It is not for George W. Bush to disregard the Constitution and decide that he is above the law."
Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont
Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of attempting to concentrate ever more government power in their own hands.

''The Bush-Cheney administration has cultivated an insidious brand of unilateralism that regularly crosses into an arrogance of power," Leahy said in a statement. ''The scope of the administration's assertions of power is stunning, and it is chilling."

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, also said that the Bush administration, abetted by ''a compliant Republican Congress," was undermining the checks and balances that ''guard against abuses of power by any single branch of government."

The opposition lawmakers were reacting to a report in Sunday's Boston Globe detailing the scope of Bush's assertions that he can ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Bush is the first president since Thomas Jefferson to stay so long in office without vetoing a bill -- an act that gives the public notice that he has rejected a provision and gives Congress a chance to override his judgment. Instead, Bush has signed into law every bill that reached his desk, often in public ceremonies in which he praises the legislation and its sponsors.

Then, after the ceremony, Bush has quietly appended ''signing statements" to more than one out of every 10 bills he has signed, laying out his legal interpretation for government officials to follow when implementing the new laws. The statements, which until recently attracted little attention in Congress or in the media, are filed without fanfare in the federal record.

In many cases, Bush has said he can ignore acts of Congress that seek to regulate the military and spy agencies, asserting the Constitution grants him that power as commander in chief. For example, he has claimed the power to waive a torture ban, provisions for oversight in the Patriot Act, limits on domestic wiretapping, and numerous regulations for the military.

Other statutes Bush has asserted that he can ignore have little to do with national security. They include some types of affirmative-action provisions, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

The White House has declined to answer questions about Bush's legal claims in his signing statements. ''We follow the practice that has been followed by previous administrations," spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday.

But legal scholars say Bush's assertions have gone far beyond that of any previous president in US history. Bush has applied his signing statements to more than 750 new statutes. His numbers are by far a record for any US president, scholars say.

Many scholars also contend that Bush is usurping some of the lawmaking powers of the Congress and Constitution-interpreting powers of the courts.

But, Leahy said, because Bush's fellow Republicans control Congress, Democrats have no power to call hearings on Bush's attempt to ''pick and choose which laws he deems appropriate to follow."

''Just as disturbing as the president's use of press releases to announce which laws he will follow is the abject failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to act as a check against this executive power grab," Leahy said. ''Until Republican leaders let Congress fulfill its oversight role, this White House will have no incentive to stop this abuse of power."


4. Bush Semiotics: Dies Iovis i Maius MMIII.
by Joseph A. Palermo

Karl Rove once said that he ran television campaigns as if the people watching had the sound turned off on their TV monitors. In other words, only the visuals matter. Three years ago, on May 1, 2003, the Bush production company devoured some of America's most powerful national and cultural signifiers, not just for crass political gain, but to inspire and enthrall the populi. It was a circus without the bread. Here are a few examples:

The aircraft carrier. This mighty vessel evokes the surrender of the Japanese on September 14, 1945 to General Douglas MacArthur. The USS Abraham Lincoln is named after the first GOP president, and Bush sought to capture some of the earthy glow of the Great Emancipator. (The USS John F. Kennedy need not apply.) The enormous ship is also a symbol of America's projection of power in the world, with its connotations of conquering oceans, tackling the frontier, and technological innovation.

The flight suit. Bush donned the one-piece jump suit instead of the business suit he normally wears to symbolize adventure, danger, "Top Gun," masculinity, and virility. Benito Mussolini wore similar get ups for the same effect. The helmet and the codpiece, the parachute and the dog tags, cast Bush in a Bonapartist light: the General who mixes with his troops, inspiring them with his charismatic leadership. Past presidents who began their careers in the military, such as the Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, made it a point never to wear their uniforms out of respect for the civilian nature of the presidency.

Bush as the flier. As the pilot (or co-pilot) Bush is part of the mission, risking his life for the cause. It's tricky business landing a jet aircraft on such a thin floating platform filled with explosive ordnance. He's our military commander. The costume evokes the patriot, helmet stuffed under his arm, returning from a dangerous mission. He's in charge. He's the Commander-in-Chief. Il Duce also flew planes. This spectacle was not Michael Dukakis in a tank!

The jet aircraft. This technological marvel harkens back to the Wright Brothers, and fulfills the dream of flight humans had pondered for centuries. Our leader was soaring like a bird in the sky with the help of American technological know-how. He conquered the air. Most people don't get the opportunity to do that; he must be a hero, a risk-taker. After all, the flyboys are the most glamorous in all of the U.S. military.

The adoring crowd. The smiling, waving, hugging, ethnically and racially diverse U.S. sailors aboard the aircraft carrier told America: "Our brave men and women protecting our nation obviously adore Bush, so should we!" Team Bush used these military personnel as cheesy, but effective, stage props.

The "Mission Accomplished" banner. Spelling out "Mission Accomplished" behind the President gave America what it loves most: Winners! Bush declared himself a winner. He was a winner over the Congress, over the weak-kneed Democrats, over the "liberal" media, over his doubters from the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Islamic Conference, the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Nations, China, Russia, Germany, France, Pope John Paul, and 15 million protesters worldwide. Bush Wins! We are Winners! (Later, when we learned the "mission" was not "accomplished," the Bush spinmeisters claimed that it was those stupid, over-excited sailors who were responsible for putting up the banner. The White House subsequently rescinded this false story, but not before the passing of several news cycles.)

The deep blue sea background. The watery horizon stretched out over the distance on a stunning California day. The cameras faced out to sea so viewers wouldn't see the San Diego coastline. Adventure and danger loom out in the vast oceans. It takes a strong, courageous man to explore them. (Even though the ship was only about ten nautical miles away from the shore.) "There's our Leader out at sea with the boys!"

The invocation of great war presidents of the past. Bush declared: "In the battle for Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." He claimed his "preventive" war on Iraq was akin to the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War Two, and that it "affirmed" Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, "asserted" the Truman Doctrine, and evoked "Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil empire." Not only had the Bush TV producers hijacked the nation's dominant symbols of patriotic duty and sacrifice, but they also wrapped them up in a semiotic package with moments of presidential greatness from our history. The implication was clear: Bush embodied Roosevelt, Truman, and Reagan.

The linkage of everything back to 9-11. In his "Mission Accomplished" speech, Bush exploited, as he always does, the trauma the nation experienced with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He tapped into the memory of this generation's Pearl Harbor and the solidarity Americans felt following that day of infamy.

The control of images. The event itself had more planning than a Superbowl half-time show. The former ABC television producer, Andrew Sforza, who had become Bush's Leni Riefenstahl, arranged all of the details: the multiple camera angles, the lighting, the staging of the sailors, the direction of each shot, the mise en scène, nothing was left to chance. Sforza had a team of nearly one hundred production technicians on the ship preparing (or "advancing") for the President's triumphal landing. Sforza, who is famous for contracting expensive lighting rigs from Europe set on barges that bathed the Statue of Liberty in light as a backdrop for one of Bush's photo-ops, hired associate producers, set builders, grips, lighting and sound specialists, assistant directors, and managers who worked with the major television networks to provide direct feeds and other accommodations. Sforza's set designers dictated the specific colors each of the lines of sailors would wear, the colors of the air deck smoke that was used, the monumental music played. They also made sure there were plenty of black, Latino, and female faces in the frame.

Naturally, the corporate media swooned over their leader's performance. Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball held forth breathless fawning commentary of the event while the caption shot across the screen: "Why are the Democrats raining on Bush's parade?" Said Matthews: "We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as a president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical . . . Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president." Matthews' comments were consistent with other media commentators' enthusiasm across the board. The astute political observer, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, referred to Bush as "a great man" a half dozen times during the aircraft carrier stunt. Wolf Blitzer, Brian Williams, Bob Schieffer, Joe Klein, David Sanger, and the other dominant voices of the esteemed worlds of mainstream journalism and punditry fell over themselves to honor our hero-leader, Bush the Younger, (Bush the Magnificent!), in his most heroic hour.

I leave you with a quotation from Joe Scarborough that captures the élan of those heady days so long ago when the Iraq war smelled like victory to the mightiest minds of our political discourse. On April 10, 2003, the day after the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Firdos Square, Scarborough remarked: "I'm waiting to hear the words, 'I was wrong,' from some of the world's most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types. . . . Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like [Tom] Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."

(Joseph A. Palermo is the author of " In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy " (Columbia, 2001). Email to: jpalermo@csus.edu)