[attrition] Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper' (fwd)

[security curmudgeon]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Forno <rforno at infowarrior.org>

If true....words fail me.  -rf

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Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON  Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to 
meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the 
controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period 
immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that 
liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces 
with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose 
renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous 
provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at 
the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel 
Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

³I don¹t give a goddamn,² Bush retorted. ³I¹m the President and the 
Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.²

³Mr. President,² one aide in the meeting said. ³There is a valid case that 
the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.²

³Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,² Bush screamed back. ³It¹s 
just a goddamned piece of paper!²

I¹ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all 
confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution ³a 
goddamned piece of paper.²

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is 
little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of 
power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that ³goddamned piece of 
paper² used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote 
that the ³Constitution is an outdated document.²

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It 
doesn¹t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It 
doesn¹t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not.  Despite our 
differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining 
document of our government, the final source to determine ­ in the end ­ 
if something is legal or right.

Every federal official ­ including the President ­ who takes an oath of 
office swears to ³uphold and defend the Constitution of the United 
States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls 
the Constitution a ³living document.²

³"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have‹a 'living document,¹² Scalia says. ³We 
now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The 
Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.²

As a judge, Scalia says, ³I don't have to prove that the Constitution 
is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.²

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the 
last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as 
a ³union between a man and woman.²  Members of Congress have proposed some 
11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right 
to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a 
loss of rights.

³We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,² Scalia warns. 
³Don't think that it's a one-way street.²

And don¹t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary 
tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the 
rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President 
Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just ³a goddamned 
piece of paper.²

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue