Divine Right Of Republicans

by digby

This Newsweak story is, well, weak:

The message to White House lawyers from their commander in chief, recalls one who was deeply involved at the time, was clear enough: find a way to exercise the full panoply of powers granted the president by Congress and the Constitution.

First of all, I’m sick of this bullshit about the president being the commander in chief all the time. This isn’t a military dictatorship. Citizens, and even lawyers in the Justice department, don’t have a commander in chief. We have a president. I know that’s not as glamorous or as, like, totally awesome, but that is what it is. A civilian, elected official who functions as the commander in chief of the armed forces.

But that’s nit-picking. This is some real bullshit:

When the story of the NSA’s program broke in The New York Times on Dec. 16, there was an immediate uproar in the press and on Capitol Hill. The reaction was predictably partisan. Most Republicans and conservatives defended Bush for safeguarding the country (though warrantless spying gave libertarians some pause). Most Democrats and liberals cited the eavesdropping program as more damning evidence that Bush and Cheney, already caught countenancing torture and jailing detainees without any legal rights, were running roughshod over civil liberties.

This is wrong. The Cato institute, which I think everyone in the DC orbit will agree is a libertarian think tank said this:

Cato senior fellow in Constitutional studies Robert A. Levy says, “President Bush’s executive order sanctions warrant-less wiretaps by the National Security Agency of communications from the United States to foreign countries by U.S. persons. Reportedly, the executive order is based on classified legal opinions stating that the president’s authority derives from his Commander-in-Chief power and the post-911 congressional authorization for the use of military force against Al Qaeda. That pernicious rationale, carried to its logical extreme, renders the PATRIOT Act unnecessary and trumps any dispute over its reauthorization. Indeed, such a policy makes a mockery of the principle of separation of powers.

Crook and Liars has footage of libertarian (and Republican hitman) William Safire joining with the critics this morning on Press the Meat.

That’s more than a pause. It’s a full stop, hold your horses, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? This is a partisan issue to the extent that the Republicans are invertebrate, hypocritical chichenshits who would be having a full on case of the vapors if anybody but their Dear GOP Leader tried a stunt like this. They certainly called for the smelling salts often enough over a couple of furtive blowjobs, shrieking to high heavens about tyranny and the rule ‘o law.

Harken back to the immortal words of Henry Hyde:

That none of us is above the law is a bedrock principle of democracy. To erode that bedrock is to risk even further injustice. To erode that bedrock is to subscribe, to a “divine right of kings” theory of governance, in which those who govern are absolved from adhering to the basic moral standards to which the governed are accountable.

We must never tolerate one law for the Ruler, and another for the Ruled. If we do, we break faith with our ancestors from Bunker Hill, Lexington and Concord to Flanders Field, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Panmunjon, Saigon and Desert Storm.

Let us be clear: The vote that you are asked to cast is, in the final analysis, a vote about the rule of law.

The rule of law is one of the great achievements of our civilization. For the alternative to the rule of law is the rule of raw power. We here today are the heirs of three thousand years of history in which humanity slowly, painfully and at great cost, evolved a form of politics in which law, not brute force, is the arbiter of our public destinies.

We are the heirs of the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic law: a moral code for a free people who, having been liberated from bondage, saw in law a means to avoid falling back into the habit of slaves.

We are the heirs of Roman law: the first legal system by which peoples of different cultures, languages, races, and religions came to live together in a form of political community.

We are the heirs of the Magna Carta, by which the freeman of England began to break the arbitrary and unchecked power of royal absolutism.

We are the heirs of a long tradition of parliamentary development, in which the rule of law gradually came to replace royal prerogative as the means for governing a society of free men and women.

We are the heirs of 1776, and of an epic moment in human affairs when the Founders of this Republic pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor – sacred honor – to the defense of the rule of law.

We are the heirs of a tragic civil war, which vindicated the rule of law over the appetites of some for owning others.

We are the heirs of the 20th century’s great struggles against totalitarianism, in which the rule of law was defended at immense cost against the worst tyrannies in human history. The “rule of law” is no pious aspiration from a civics textbook. The rule of law is what stands between all of us and the arbitrary exercise of power by the state. The rule of law is the safeguard of our liberties. The rule of law is what allows us to live our freedom in ways that honor the freedom of others while strengthening the common good. The rule of law is like a three legged stool: one leg is an honest Judge, the second leg is an ethical bar and the third is an enforceable oath. All three are indispensable in a truly democratic society.

Very moving, no? All those fine words about the rule of law safeguarding our liberties, the arbitrary exercise of power and Bunker Hill, Lexington and Normandy went right out the window on 9/11. That was when Henry and the rest of his stalwart defenders of the rule of law promptly wet their pants and then let their president use the constitution to clean up the puddle.

Update: For a full compendium of conservative critics of the president on the NSA illegal spying scandal (including one leg of the Powerline stool!) read this excellent post by Glenn Greenwald.

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