The Real Agenda

The NY Times hits the nail on the head in a recent editorial-

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective war on terror...

They then give a detailed analysis on three areas: The Guantánamo Bay Prison, Eavesdropping on Americans, and The Cost of Executive Arrogance. They conclude-

...To a disturbing degree, the horror of 9/11 became an excuse to take up this cause [of executive power] behind the shield of Americans’ deep insecurity. The results have been devastating. Americans’ civil liberties have been trampled. The nation’s image as a champion of human rights has been gravely harmed. Prisoners have been abused, tortured and even killed at the prisons we know about, while other prisons operate in secret. American agents “disappear” people, some entirely innocent, and send them off to torture chambers in distant lands. Hundreds of innocent men have been jailed at Guantánamo Bay without charges or rudimentary rights. And Congress has shirked its duty to correct this out of fear of being painted as pro-terrorist at election time.

• We still hope Congress will respond to the Supreme Court’s powerful and unequivocal ruling on Guantánamo Bay and also hold Mr. Bush to account for ignoring the law on wiretapping. Certainly, the president has made it clear that he is not giving an inch of ground.

On that note, Rep. Jane Harman- the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence- is smart enough to see Sen. Specter's much-hyped 'compromise' legislation for what it is: a sham proposal intended to further empower President Bush under the guise of reining him in. She states that "Not only does [his proposal] fail to force the President to comply with the law, but it actually authorizes the President to make an end-run around FISA and gives him a blank check to conduct warrantless spying on Americans." She further notes that, unlike herself, Sen. Specter has not been briefed on this program and thus is "legislating in the dark". He seems to like it there.

Finally, an amazing revelation was made today that apparently attracted the attention of only a handful of people. Attorney General Gonzales revealed today in a Senate hearing that "President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails". How Nixonian of him. I blogged about the blocking of that probe in May, which was justified by- surprise- national security concerns. Sorry, checks and balances, it's too dangerous for you right now.

Senior officials at the Justice Department were stunned by this revelation.

The media at large? Eh, not so interested.

It's good to be king.