RW legal scholar thinks Congress should require Bush to get its permission

[BurtWorm]

on counterterror measures that compromise civil liberties. (I think they should require him to get its permission to go to the bathroom, for starters.)



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/12/22/impeach/print.html

Similar fears are voiced by Bruce Fein, a former associate deputy attorney general under President Ronald Reagan. Fein is very much a member of the right. He once published a column arguing that "President George W. Bush should pack the United States Supreme Court with philosophical clones of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and defeated nominee Robert H. Bork."

Suddenly, though, Fein is talking about Bush as a threat to America. "President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law," he wrote in the right-wing Washington Times on Dec. 20. "He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms."

What alarms Fein is not only that Bush has broken laws but also that he has repeatedly shown contempt for the separation of powers. Fein wants to see congressional hearings that would explore whether Bush accepts any constitutional limitation on his own authority.

"The most important thing to me, in terms of thinking about the issue of impeachment, is to recognize that the Constitution does place a value on continuity," Fein says. "We don't want to have a situation where you make a single error, and you're exposed to an impeachment proceeding."

[BurtWorm]

1. Can't sacrifice liberties to " someone who thinks the state is him"

Fein says Congress should probe Bush on whether he plans to keep "skating the edge" of federal law by trying to concentrate power in the executive branch. "That's the key. It's that probing that's essential to knowing whether we're dealing with somebody who's really a dangerous guy. If he maintains this disregard or contempt for the coordinate branches of government, it's that conception of an omnipotent presidency that makes the occupant a dangerous person. We just can't sacrifice our liberties for ourselves and our posterity by permitting someone who thinks the state is him, and nobody else, to continue in office."

[BurtWorm]

2. kick

[badgerpup]

3. It's no secret

Bush has demonstrated repeatedly that he considers himself to be above the law.
According to him, god talks to him PERSONALLY and has chosen him to lead this war...even though it was unnecessary and he had to start it under false pretenses.
Since he is under divine guidance, he feels he can do any damn thing he wants. If god didn't approve of him doing it, he wouldn't want to do it.
It would be interesting to remove the name from this particular file and run it through the some of the profiling programs at Quantico and see what kind of personality comes up.
I don't think it would be a well-adjusted and balanced one. :scared: