Thursday, April 13, 2006

Can the President Commit a Crime?

From Geov Parrish's latest article.
. . . the Bush NEI leak rationale follows an all-too-familiar theme: Bush cannot break the law, because Bush is the law. He can't leak a document, because if he says it's OK to release the document it's therefore by definition not a leak. Just like torture is illegal except when George says it's not. Or warrantless domestic wiretapping is illegal, except when he authorizes it.

Bush and the people around him appear to have genuinely believed, for at least the four and a half years since 9-11, that the President by definition is incapable of breaking the law. On his sole authority laws can be ignored, overridden, or changed.
Are we a nation of laws or of men? Ruben Bolling, of Tom the Dancing Bug fame, gave the answer several years go.

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