President Bush on Saturday further cemented his legacy of fighting for strong executive powers, using his veto to shut down a congressional effort to limit the Central Intelligence Agency’s latitude to subject terrorism suspects to harsh interrogation techniques that are prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies.Mr. Bush vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the agency from using such interrogation methods, which include waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning and that has been the subject of intense criticism at home and abroad.
I don't think the legacy Bush leaves behind will be one of "fighting for strong executive powers." I think it will be "led America into the first pre-emptive war in its history, bogging its military down in Iraq for years." It will be "led a compliant Republican Congress down the road to destruction of American civil liberties." It will be "imprisoned suspects without charge at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, limiting their access to lawyers and refusing to follow the Constitution's stated principles of habeas corpus, no unreasonable search and seizure, due process, the right to a speedy trial, and other attacks on American law." It will be "politicized the American judicial system by firing US Attorneys General for unwillingness to prosecute cases the Executive Branch trumped up." It will be "prevented investigations into wrongdoing of Administration employees by defying Congressional subpoenas."
And that's the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by Linkmeister at March 8, 2008 08:54 AM | TrackBack