Rolling Back Bush

Bush has put the US presidency on steroids, sucking the power vested in all the other branches of government and spurning oversight. For example, Bush’s notorious signing statements exempt him from enforcing or obeying hundreds of laws, effectively wiping out the power of both the legislative and judicial branch to make and enforce laws. He and his administration are in contempt of court regarding the Supreme Court ruling that states that Guantanamo prisioners indeed do have human and civil rights. He refuses to press charges or release them, eschew torture and is granting them only a minimal relaxing of nightmarish regimen.
Bush is a self confessed criminal, openly admitting to illegal wire tapping of American citizens and skirting the minimal control of the FISA Court.
If congress passes a law, in addition to signing statements, it is often re-written in the implementation process by Bush administration flunkies, violating the intent and spirit of the law. Settled law is overturned by internal fiat such as the EPA granting pesticide spraying on water. He's a hoodlum.

Congressional oversight, an important part of the balance of powers, is prevented by a smoke screen of lies and obfuscation, by spurious claims of national security and when all else fails, a stubborn refusal to comply.
With no restraint, Bush has run amok and trashed almost every agency and asset the US government has.

The new Democratic congress has a lot on its plate. Where to begin? What will be the most effective way of stemming the Bush juggernaut? The public are restive.

One of the most dangerous and nonsensical things Congress did was to pass the AUMF; The Authorization for the Use of Military Force, effectively giving the power to declare war to the president and setting an evil precedent. Bush promptly seized that power, ill advisedly charged into Iraq and clothed himself in the robes quasi military dictator.
What quickly followed was a abrogation of the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, not limited to and including illegal wire tapping and spying, torture, suspension of human and civil rights at home and abroad, illegal and capricious incarceration and a president who declares himself both the sole arbitrator (the right to single handedly declare you an enemy combatant ) of justice and to be above the law himself. He bamboozled a limp-wristed congress into absolving Bush and his minions from prosecution for war crimes, retroactively (unconstitutional) and in advance (probably unconstitutional). Like a serial killer leaving clues about the identity of his next victim, Bush tells us that far from being repentant for his past deeds, he intends to “kill again”. He can do it because he’s “a war president”.

What could make more sense than repealing the unconstitutional mischief that congress allowed itself be stampeded into by 9-11 hysteria? What better way for congress to regain its credibility than by refuting the cooked intelligence and funereal and false rhetoric of the dismal Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal and trumpeted by a decrepit national press.
What could be more effective in controlling the bad boy in the White House than stripping away the very document that Bush uses to support any and all of his worst abuses.

I wish it were my idea but the credit goes to journalist and author, David Lindorff. It deftly accomplishes at least two things in one elegant sweep. It returns power that belongs to congress, to congress. It strips away the protection that Bush claims and will surely use to defend himself against any checking of his power by the new congress. What “war powers” president Bush? It’s like giving the US Constitution, now a pale and wan imitation of itself, a big dose of vitamin YES.

Congress is not going to do this without pressure. Too many of them on both sides of the aisle have been co-opted by the “Hostile Takeover” of corporate power. They would much rather support the status quo while appearing to respond to the mood of the country. The MSM aren’t going to push anything that reflects this badly on government of, by and for plutocrats.

We’re going to have to get this agenda out front and center on our own. We’re going to have to make sure our representatives in congress know we want nothing less than the real deal; a real representative democracy with a functional constitution.

It’s a rare opportunity and we shouldn’t pass it up. We have a chance to do something that people of good will have only dreamed about; play the last six years backward and have the happy ending that everyone craves. (Hats off to. Michael Winship for the concept.). We can push congress to dismantle the shoddy underpinnings of the imperialistic Bush administration and watch gleefully while it tumbles down around their ankles. Nice, hmmm?

CarolDW