Crisis Schmisis
by digby
Like the wingnut he’s become, the ever more unctuous Joe Lieberman threatens a “constitutional crisis” if his colleagues don’t do what he wants:
Even as our troops have begun to take Baghdad back step-by-step, there are many in this Congress who have nevertheless already reached a conclusion about the futility of America’s cause there, and declared their intention to put an end to this mission not with one direct attempt to cutoff funds, but step by political step. No matter what the rhetoric of this resolution, that is the reality of the moment. This non-binding measure before us is a first step toward a constitutional crisis that we can and must avoid.
Lieberman believes that said crisis is being precipitated because the congress has the temerity to try to rein in a rogue president who has no respect for the wishes of the American people or the constitution.
One would think a person so concerned with the constitution would have stepped up at some time in the last few years to denounce this:
When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees, he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to bypass the very law he had just signed.
This news came fast on the heels of Bush’s shocking admission that, since 2002, he has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable federal law.
And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants.
All these declarations echo the refrain Bush has been asserting from the outset of his presidency. That refrain is simple: Presidential power must be unilateral, and unchecked.
But the most recent and blatant presidential intrusions on the law and Constitution supply the verse to that refrain. They not only claim unilateral executive power, but also supply the train of the President’s thinking, the texture of his motivations, and the root of his intentions.
They make clear, for instance, that the phrase “unitary executive” is a code word for a doctrine that favors nearly unlimited executive power. Bush has used the doctrine in his signing statements to quietly expand presidential authority.
And Lieberman has been with him every step of the way. He is in no position to talk about constitutional crises ever. He supports the most aggressive executive power grab in American history even to the extent that he votes for torture, indefinite detention without due process, and anything else his “commander in chief” says he wants to do. He has no more credibility to warn this nation about a constitutional crisis than his BFF George W. Bush has to claim it’s “preposterous” to suggest he would manufacture evidence that Iran is provoking a military confrontation. Please.
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