- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Perhaps you've forgotten the context of this exchange? if so, let me remind you that Ms Johnsen is quoted as saying that her job as OLC will be to "Say 'no' to the President" in those areas where he proposes to act outside of his constitutional authority.
What authority is given in the Constitution for the President to order the US military to intervene in the affairs of another country, as Clinton did in Bosnia?
(hint: none whatsoever)
If GWB's actions in the invasion and destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the torture that accompanied them, or the wiretapping of US citizens, are crimes BECAUSE there is no constitutional authority for them, then so too are the actions of Clinton in Bosnia, and in Sudan, and at Waco.
(Your version of events at Waco is unconvincing. The right to bear arms was explicitly enumerated in your Constitution for the purpose of resisting oppresion by your own government. Constitutionally, the benefit of the doubt rests with the citizenry, who are constitutionally entitled to "fire on federal agents" when those federal agents are involved in criminal trespass. Your doctrine seems to be that federal agents are above the law, and the consequences of breaking it. Yet you also seem to agree with Johnsen that GWB should not be. Strange, neh?)
But don't fret, I understand that almost nobody wants to pay anything more than lip service to the Constitution, which is why neither Glenn nor Ms Johnsen nor you have mentioned the current meetings Mr Obama is having with Congress about stealing another trillion from you all even though there is not one shred of Constitutional authority for doing so, which was my original point.
Every post you make further reinforces Glenn's point about tribalism and the associated blindesses it produces ...
