Bush: "I'm a Legal Cowboy, Baby!"

Bush has reauthorized - some thirty-odd times - a highly classifed and unconstitutional program that permits the NSA to spy on U.S. citizens.  (It is a presupposition of this post that Bush has acted unconstitutionally.  I do not here argue against a broad interpretation of the Constitution that permits the president unbounded legal authority in some situations.)  And he intends to continue reauthorizing it indefinitely, in the face of heavy criticism, because he's a legal cowboy, baby.  The NYT broke the story after withholding the information for an entire year.  When they finally managed to get around to fulfilling their journalistic duties, Bush accused them of breaching the nation's security.  When aides revealed to the president that he may be ignoring long-standing legal rules to "authorize" illegal behavior, the president pitched a temper tantrum.

According to Capitol Hill Blue, which may or may not usually be a reliable source, the president's temper tantrum ran as follows:

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”  “Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”  I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.” [link]

Now this is amusing, if not strictly true.  Yet, as noted here, it does echo a similar sentiment Bush is recorded on video as expressing when president-elect:

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator. [CNN]

And, as we will shortly see, if Bush didn't say it, he thought it.  Paul Campos, a CU professor, has an excellent article on Bush's personal war on civil liberties.  You see, there exists a system in place for issuing warrants for spying to nasty little organizations like the NSA.  And, in fact, the secret court that issues these secret warrants need not even be approached before the spying begins, so long as the NSA obtain the warrant within three days post commencing.  Furthermore, these secret warrants are almost never turned down by this secret court.  So why does Bush need to break the law (you can read: "undermine civil liberties" here if you like)?  Campos points out that it's "easy to imagine what sort of spying a president might want to order that wouldn't be approved by a court."  And, we should add, by this mockery of a court in particular!

We'll display the standard party line defense by making fun of Cheney's mental capacity:

Either we're serious about fighting the war on terror or we're not," the vice president said. ''The President and I believe very deeply that there is a hell of a threat.

This line of reasoning, the same line that our intellectually destitute president pressed against the NYT and its journalists, implies that it is a necessary condition for diminishing the "hell of a threat" we face that the NSA need not even seek a warrant for spying on citizens within three days after they kick off their dirty work.  Now this is not obviously true.  In fact, it's got not one iota of prima facie plausibility.  It would require serious justification in the form of rigorous  and carefully reasoned argument - argument our President is probably incapable of and our system of government not equipped to handle - if it could have a chance of being sustained.  What seems obviously true is that if such an overly permissive court that can convene on a moment's notice to grant warrants with a three day grace period, can so handicap the NSA that they couldn't perform their nasty job, then the NSA should be immediately disbanded on grounds of gross incompetence.  Who could not share this intuition?

There is simply no excuse for removing the last roadblock standing in the way of severe and wanton violations of civil liberties.  Or at least, not in the manner that the president has gone about it, given the prima facie implausibility of the piffle coming from the executive office.  Why on earth would so many more people be at risk of death if the standard and supremely lenient process for obtaining warrants was followed?    I contend that this is hard evidence that the president is thrilled to get rid of the checks and balances so many Americans rightly demand as a condition of any form of legitimate government (if there is such).  I conclude that if Bush didn't say to hell with the Constitution, he's surely acted as if he thinks as much.