George W. Bush: The outlaw president

By Weekly Archive On Apr 8, 2008

It’s
hard for this liberal to admit, but conservatives actually get some
things right.

They
are correct, I believe, in advocating smaller, more efficient
government; fiscal responsibility; balanced budgets; a
non-interventionist foreign policy; and a constitutionally limited
chief executive.

The
problem is — as I document in my new book, "Trainwreck: The End
of the Conservative Revolution (And Not A Moment Too Soon)" —
once conservatives came to power, they delivered just the opposite: a
bloated federal government; out-of-control federal spending; record
budget deficits; a trigger-happy foreign policy; and a president who
thumbs his nose at the law and Constitution.

Indeed,
while failing in many things, George Bush and Dick Cheney have
succeeded in restoring the imperial presidency of Richard Nixon. From
the beginning, they have operated as if they are above the law. By
refusing to reveal the names of oil executives on Cheney’s Energy
Task Force, tapping phones without a warrant, or authorizing the use
of torture, Bush and Cheney have put into practice Nixon’s rule:
"When the president does it, that means that it’s not illegal."

We
[recently] saw two more blatant examples of their disdain for the
law. First was an 81-page memo provided to the Defense Department by
Deputy Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003, shortly after the
invasion of Iraq. Yoo advised officers of the Pentagon that, in
interrogating suspects in the war on terror, they didn’t have to
worry about international treaties prohibiting torture. They didn’t
even have to worry about U.S. laws against assault, maiming or other
forms of physical abuse. After Sept. 11, advised Yoo, any abusive
treatment of prisoners was justified as self-defense.

In
other words, on behalf of the Bush White House and then-Attorney
General John Ashcroft, Yoo made the argument that, in wartime,
anything goes: an argument long ago rejected by the civilized world,
especially after Nazi atrocities in World War II. And an argument
that led directly to the abuses of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

Perhaps
more chillingly, Yoo’s 2003 memo — released to the ACLU under a
Freedom of Information request — cites an earlier, 2001 Justice
Department memo, still classified, advising the Bush White House that
Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure
do not apply to actions taken against American citizens as part of
the so-called "war on terror." That memo was most likely
used by Bush as the basis for his illegal NSA wiretapping program,
which continues to this day.

But
it’s not only on national security matters that the Bush White House
flouts the law. This week’s second example: Construction of Bush’s
670-mile fence along the border with Mexico has been held up because
of legal challenges from ranchers, property owners, and environmental
organizations. Rather than resolve those differences under the law,
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that the
administration will simply ignore 30 different applicable federal
laws, declare itself exempt from the law, and build the fence by the
end of the year. Property rights, states rights and the environment
be damned.

How
convenient. Wouldn’t you and I love the privilege of deciding which
laws we like, or which laws we would obey — and chucking all the
rest?

What’s
so shocking about these two Bush administration actions is not simply
their utter lawlessness. It’s how far they are from what
conservatives profess to believe. Starting with the Founders,
conservatives have always stood for strict limits on presidential
power as a safeguard against tyranny. In keeping with James Madison,
conservatives Russell Kirk and William F. Buckley Jr. taught that the
Congress, not the president, was the most powerful of the three
branches of government.

Even
Barry Goldwater opposed the idea that presidents could ever operate
outside the law. As if anticipating the power-grabbing days of Bush
and Cheney, Goldwater warned in 1964: "This is nothing less than
the totalitarian philosophy that the end justifies the means. . . .
If ever there was a philosophy of government totally at war with that
of the Founding Fathers, it is this one."

But
here again, as in so many areas, today’s conservatives have thrown
true conservatism out the window. George W. Bush doesn’t believe he
has to obey the law. He believes his is the law.

"If
this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier," he
once confessed, "…as long as I’m the dictator."
Fortunately, he won’t be much longer.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "How
the Republicans Stole Religion." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at billpressshow.com. His
email address is: bill@billpress.com. His Web site is:
www.billpress.com.