Letters to the Editor
What Constitution?
Published Letters: 156
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Nancy Soderberg's Giggle, FISA, the US Constitution and Why to Vote for Obama
[Read the article: Today's coverup of surveillance crimes and Barack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I too listened to GG and Nancy Soderberg being interviewed this morning, as we all waited around for the Congress' frontal assault on the Fourth Amendment. Having observed, to deafening silence here, that the proposed FISA amendments are in fact premised upon immunizing the telecoms but leaving the "remedy" of impeachment of the President an "open" possibility [pyrrhic perhaps, but not actually foreclosed by the legislation itself], I was struck by the way Ms. Soderberg repeatedly took pains to excoriate the President and his "illegal acts". The last question framed by the moderator in the Q&A was, in essence, to take her up on how the "blame" should fall on the President, and she was asked "could the President be impeached over this?"
She giggled. Then she said, essentially, "well, yes, that could be a remedy." Asked the same question, GG gave the pragmatically obvious answer that once this FISA bill is passed and the immunity is given the telecoms, it's over because Bush will pardon any and everyone for any criminal complicity.
Ms. Soderberg's giggle, it seems to me, encapsulates all the falsity, servility, weakness, disingenuity and outright treason that underlies the Democratic Majority's capitulation on this FISA issue. "We're going to do exactly what the President wants, and we're going to tell you there are 'compromises' and the immmunity is 'limited', but we sure as hell know that we're letting the President get away with flagrantly criminal and unconstitutional conduct here and we have no intention of doing anything about that."
So what's happening today, really, and how does it fit into the larger picture of where the Constitution fits into our system of government and who we should elect to be President?
The evisceration of substantial individual liberties guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment is happening today. I assume -- though it remains to be seen - there will be a way to mount a legal challenge to the constitutionality of this abomination before an Article III court. It remains to be seen how these new government spying powers will be utilized and whether they will be used sparingly, with restraint, by the Executive Branch. As to both issues, you want to take those risks with McCain and his Justice Department, or take those risks with Obama and his Justice Department, at the helm?
And what's next on the Constitutional horizon? For those who can stomach it, take a look at any of Shooter's snide references to "Article II" to justify absolutely any presidential abuse. Shooter identifies the problem of constitutional dimension: the principal outrage of the Bush Administration has been the "unitary executive theory", by which Bush claims unlimited powers and presumes to imply support for this from Article II of the Constitution. It is this construct which Congress has never had the guts to challenge, it is this construct which underlies every conceit of the Bush Administration, from the illegal wiretapping programs themselves (and thus today's FISA legislation), to the "signing statements", to the torture, to the unending war of aggression and permanent occupation, to altering EPA global warming reports, to politicizing the Justice Department, to destroying electronic data and evidence, to refusing to testify before Congress. You name it, Yoo justified it for the pres. Take a look at Rep. Kucinich's articles of impeachment.
What's next is where does America go from here on the relationship between the Executive Branch, the Congress and the Courts under the United States Constitution. This issue is whether or not the doctine of Separation of Powers has any meaning, for under the unitary executive theory it most decidedly has little, if any, worth any more. Congress meekly has refused to act to enforce it's co-equal position or to execise its constitutional oversight and balance obligations and, as Ms. Soderberg confirms, the Democrats themselves consider that idea laughable for reasons they could not possibly justify before the American public if called upon to do so.
So it's up to the American People now to vote for whether they want a constitutional democracy as provided in the United States Constitution, or whether they want a dictatorship built upon a facile construct of a "unitary executive" manufactured out of whole cloth by a group of neocon extremists who have been aided by a terrorist attack enabled by their own incompetence, a war of their own creation and some extraordinarily fortuitous cowardice from the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate.
We actually know where John McCain stands on this issue, for as GG pointed out not long ago McCain has hired a senior staff advisor who gave an interview in which he described the President's powers under the unitary executive theory as "near dictatorial" -- and within a week, by the way, McCain changed his own position on the FISA amendments and came out in favor of telecom immunity. Does anyone think Obama -- who taught Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, as I understand it -- is going to adopt allegiance to Yoo's theory of the unitary executive? I don't. And I think that's more important than even the FISA events of today.
Bush should be impeached. Cheney should be impeached. We should, none of us, fail to recognize and register opinion on that fact, even knowing that pragmatically we are being denied that constitutional remedy for presidential lawlessness.
But there's going to be an election. Allowing John McCain and his neocon advisors to continue occupancy of the White House will, I truly fear, serve only to end once and for all the glorious constitutional experiment that is the government of the United States. I wish I was able to believe something else. Be pissed off at Obama, but don't fail to vote for him or, worse, don't vote for McCain because of these recent disappointing actions of Obama. There's more at stake than FISA amendments, including the preservation of a chance to maybe do something in the future about what these FISA amendments provide.