I'll See Your Attack on the Media, and Raise You...

So there's this from the Associated Press:

Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the U.S. as "critical to saving American lives." ...

The president had harsh words for those who revealed the program to the media, saying they acted improperly and illegally. The surveillance, was first disclosed in Friday's New York Times.

"As a result, our enemies have learned information they should not have," Bush said. "The unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk."

Just so that we're all clear: This is the president going on the offensive because he's just been beaten on a major piece of legislation, his approval ratings are down and his second term has been basically an unmitigated disaster. Beating up on the media is always a nice strategy, one that muddies the issue and scores points with his base. It was nice timing by the Times, to hold the story for a year and print it on the day the Senate was to vote on renewing the P.A.T.R.I.O.T Act. I'm not complaining, because I'm happy to see that odious piece of legislation defeated, at least for now. I really don't believe that it is dead.

So if we're going to start ramping up attacks, how about this one. I'll send $100 (okay, I probably won't) to the Democrat who starts working on the articles of Impeachment of President Bush. Now, authorizing warrant-less wiretaps clearly doesn't rise to the level of lying about blow jobs to a grand jury, but let me make a case here anyway.

Bush's oath-of-office requires him to uphold the Constitution, which includes provisions to protect us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Governments can confiscate papers and tap phones, sure, but they must first justify it to a court. This is our system. When it comes to national security surveillance, the government has a special structure in place to authorize things. So what we've seen is that Bush, even with a legal option for wiretapping at his disposal, chose the illegal option. Maybe he and his entire national security team are collectively too stupid to know they didn't need to break the law to do this. I don't think that's true. I believe Bush chose the illegal option to establish that he was allowed to circumvent legal structures. In doing that Bush, in effect, is insisting that the executive branch is not subject to the rule of law. And this an attack on the Constitution. The Framers (when did this become a law school blog?) wanted diffuse power. Unchecked executives (from King George to Saddam Hussein) generally abuse their powers. I'm a huge fan of irony, but this particular piece, the government elminating our freedoms in the name of preserving them in the face of terrorism, I could do without.

It behooves the legislative branch to put a big fucking bodycheck on the executive to bring things back into balance. That's all I'm saying.