Fourth Amendment, Shmourth Amendment
Smarter people have already commented on the release of the Yoo memos, and frankly I don't have much to add. What I can say is that I'd been tracking Congress' movement on those memos for some time. A long while back, at an event at the Georgetown Law Center, I asked Patrick Leahy whether, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he'd use his subpoena power to make them public and he said it might come to that. What followed, of course, was a series of very angry-sounding letters and public statements from various corners of Capitol Hill, until finally the ACLU had to step in where public servants had either failed, middled, or ignored the issue entirely.
Now we learn of the existence of yet another memo, still unreleased, which, for the 16-or-more months the administration honored it, effectively "concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations." The Fourth Amendment, you'll recall, is that annoying little cockroach in the bill of rights which protects people like you from things such as warrantless wiretapping and other means of internal espionage.
So, by my count, the White House has, at various times, determined that the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments are unacceptable impediments to its violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, and, as such, chosen to wish them out of existence as if they were minor headaches like congressional subpoenas or the national debt. Half of the bill of rights. Pretty neat trick, no?
Comments
William Buckley would not have stood for this.
This is not surprising. How did George W. Bush refer to the Constitution in November of 2005? “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
It seem as the only amendment the Bushies don't want to violate is the Second Amendment, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed".
Steven: Yeah. Because, after all, an unsourced claim at CHB must be true. It's too good to check.
Bush totally really said that and thinks that, because Doug Thompson assures you he said it, on the basis of absolutely nothing at all other than printing it. No source is provided, even anonynmously.
After all, CHB has such a sterling track record for its sources. You might want to read that thread, where that very article was claimed to be removed by CHB staff for being utterly unsourced... but of course it came back, and the person in question is now gone.
It does no good to rely on articles like that one from CHB; they make real problems with the Administration look ginned-up by association. A solid critique doesn't rely on unsourced and exceedingly unlikely claims that boil down to nothing by anti-Bush fantasizing.
I mean, unless that really is all you got?
Thanks, I thought the quote was verified by two other participants at conservative Oval office meeting..But I see now that Doug Thompson withdrew the comment, though he still thinks it is true..but you're correct it shouldn't be given any more currency. Bush and his lawyers with their pleadng the case of the 'unitary Executive' don't seem to or understand the fundamental concept of the checks and balances of the Constitution or dismiss it; that is the real argument I was trying to make.
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