War on Congress, not Christmas

Posted by Mary Mancini on March 26, 2006 under Uncategorized |

In what David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues called a ”’mind-bogglingly expansive conception’ of executive power and its low regard for legislative power”, President Bush attached a signing statement to the recently renewed Patriot Act. According to the Boston Globe, “Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law’s requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ‘impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties.’”

He wrote: ”The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . ”

Couple this report with the recent essay by John W. Dean in which he puts President Bush’s NSA wiretapping program in historical context (Nixon, anyone?) and we begin to have a clear understanding of the Bush administration’s thirst for power and control.

To see where this thirst may lead, try to find the speech made by Sandra Day O’Connor recently in which she drops the “D-bomb.” For a more in depth analysis read American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, in which he “presents a nightmarish vision of ideological extremism, catastrophic fiscal irresponsibility, rampant greed and dangerous shortsightedness” that is the Republican party.