Power That Bush Can’t Just Take
Washington Post, United States By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Page A25
Since the holiday season is a time of generosity and goodwill toward all — even those who torture the Constitution and hoodwink the nation into ill-advised wars — let’s do a little thought experiment.
Let’s assume that George W. Bush’s claim of virtually unfettered presidential power is not just an exercise in reclaiming executive perks that Dick Cheney believes were wrongly surrendered after Watergate. Let’s assume that Bush genuinely believes he needs the right to blanket the nation with electronic surveillance, detain indefinitely anyone he considers a terrorist suspect, make those detainees disappear into secret, CIA-run prisons, and subject them to “waterboarding” and other degradations. Let’s assume for the moment that the president’s only desperate motivation is to prevent another day like Sept. 11, 2001.
Let’s go even further and assume he decided to invade Iraq for the same reason. Even in a thought experiment, we can’t forgive the way he snowed the country into believing there was some connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks; nor can we forget the way he hyped the flawed intelligence about weapons of mass destruction — we’re being generous here, not stupid. But let’s assume that however calculated and cynical the machinations, and however wrongheaded the decision to go to war, the underlying motive was purely to avoid another catastrophic terrorist attack.
All right: Given these overly kind assumptions, can this administration’s usurpation of power somehow be justified?
Every time I work it through, the answer I come up with is no. The president has no right to ignore the rule of law as if it were a mere nuisance. [more]