One of the things that has perplexed me about the Bush administration's lawlessness and anti-Constitutionality (besides the obvious and usual outraged reactions) is how they justified to themselves that they had these powers.

Did they think they'd found some secret room in the Constitution and system of laws that no president before had ever noticed? Did they just think they were the smartest guys in the room -- the smartest guys to occupy those particular rooms in 200-plus years? Or did they know they were completely on the wrong side of things and just make a few half-assed attempts to rationalize it? WTF were they thinking?

Fortunately the Lackawanna Six WERE convicted.

We dodged the bullet in this reckless attempt to appease liberals. Cheney was right.

goddam dick cheney's shit -filled soul to hell.

God damn Dick Cheney's shit-filled soul to hell.

It's been said before -- there's plenty of evidence that for Cheney the expansion of executive authority was an important (and long-standing) goal in its own right. He and Addington seemed to think that the way to go about this was to push hard, everywhere, until something pushed back and made them stop. It's true these guys were panicked after 9/11. But you get the feeling that they would have been pushing these kinds of policies anyway.

Right, Al - Damn shame that black clad UN troops can descend from black UN helicopters, almost daily, over our cities and rural havens, but, not one Predator is allowed to fire for effect. Just because that one firing in the backyards of Detroit hit Mrs Murphy hanging up her laundry; hey, scheisse happens, nicht wahr?

Yes, the Lackawanna Six were convicted... in pleas deals, mainly going to Afghanistan when there was ban going to Afghanistan and dealing with Al-Qaeda after the terror attacks in 1998.

I don't understand why Cheney wasn't fired. If his ideas were carried out, it would had been a huge legal headache for the Federal gov't.

Cheney didn't like the 90 or so percent conviction rate in US Federal Courts with some Appeals courts give 99 percent support of Federal Gov't prosecutors? the deck is already marked for the Federal Gov't.

"During at least one high-level meeting, Cheney, David Addington, and their allies cited a memo from John Yoo, which suggested pursuit of national security goals overrode practically everything, including the Fourth Amendment and Posse Comitatus."- Mr. Benen

And there you have a perfect distillation of the self reinforcing circle of delusion that the Shrubnauts used to justify anything/everything.

Look inward to rummage around in the toolbox of freshly created rationalizations put there by like minded power crazy constitution wreckers and, (after shaking), then pull it out of Yoo's or Addington's ass, wave it around, (poo flying everywhere), and throw it in the public square saying, "That! That is all the permission we need to do with you as we please. It came out of Yoo's ass, therefore it is valid. Suck on that!"

LOL. I think burro provided a pretty good answer to my question.

Fortunately the Lackawanna Six WERE convicted.

We dodged the bullet in this reckless attempt to appease liberals. Cheney was right.

Al, that stuff is even more incoherent than your usual pronouncements. Care to explain what aspect of the Lackawanna Six story was a 'reckless attempt to appease liberals'?

And how was Cheney right in his argument that to deal with the Lackawanna Six would require breaking Posse Comitatus, when the eventual outcome, conviction of the six, validated the decision of not going that route?

We're all aware that consistency of argument is not one of your strengths, but you're having an even worse than usual episode today.

It's never popular to stand up for lawyers, but here goes. One primary flaw of the Bush/Cheney team is that none of the top policy makers were lawyers and had no legal training. The lawyers who served the top policy makers were generally lackeys. Gonzales, Addington, Libby, Yoo and Myers never showed any independence or spine. There were a few in the Justice Department who stood up, but the damage had all been done by then. Some JAG lawyers were on the side of the angels too, but in general the legal profession did not come out of this mess looking good.

Dammit people, the Al comment above was a clear parody and not even such a bad one. I mean hell, I seriously doubt the real "Al" even exists anymore and this Al is just a faint memory meant to make fun of the real "Al," assuming there ever was a real Al.

Not to be rude, especially as I know it's early, but could we PLEASE engage our brains before attacking the trolls? Attacking trolls is always stupid, but attacking parody trolls is simply embarrassing. The rule of thumb is to avoid the low-lying fruit and only debunk the stuff that requires debunking. Nothing in the Al comment above would have fooled a small child, so no debunking was necessary.

All of these machinations were about nothing but power. A constant, never-ending pursuit of monarchical power. You know, the kind of power that this country's founders left England to escape and denounce.

Cheney et al. could have chosen to do what they did through existing procedures, but they chose not to. Choosing the FBI to (rightly) arrest the Five was not 'liberal appeasment,' it was instead following the law.

They wanted then--and many of those in positions of power and influence--and still want now nothing less than a feudalistic society. It's not that those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it, it's that to recreate history is their goal.

the president "bristled at the prospect of troops descending on an American suburb to arrest terrorism suspects."

The Bush Family Image Restoration proceeds apace. H/T to the NYT for moving the project forward.

no operational need or even advantage to involving the military, all about cowing the rest of the country.

Joey - While I've noticed the same thing regarding the Times and other MSM'ers giving overly generous explanations for Bush's motives, I definitely think there's much truth to the idea that Bush wasn't nearly as extreme as many of the policies he supported. Let's not forget, he DIDN'T send in troops to get these guys, which clearly puts him in a far better spot than Cheney. But I agree that the idea of him "bristling" at this seems a bit much.

And that's exactly what I've always thought. Bush was a bully who lacked empathy, understanding, and knowledge; which led him to make bad decisions. But all the same, he was greatly manipulated by Cheney's machine into choosing dangerous policies that he was made to believe was the only decent option. Bush wasn't evil. He was just a man-child who was given more power than he had any ability to handle. And had he been surrounded by better advisors, things would have turned out far differently.

And you know what, if the only way we can learn about these stories is if they come from Bush sympathizers who are willing to throw Cheney under the bus, I'll take them. Sure, they're not whole truths, but it's still better than the ignorance we had before. And again, I'm certain that Cheney was the far worse evil than Bush. Bush will be remembered as an easily manipulated dunce who should never have been allowed to be president. Cheney won't get off nearly so easily.

And finally, this is better for us. Pinning everything on Bush lets conservatives off easy. Bush only did what he did because the entire conservative movement wanted him to do it. That's where the real blame lies. This isn't about one bad president, but about a political philosophy that was completely wrong. Let's stake all their hearts at once and be done with it.

Wasn't a ban on having the US military being deployed on US soil one of the key parts of the agreements to bring the Confederate states back into the US? Wouldn't this have been a red flag to Bush's base because of that?

What a missed opportunity. Darth could have sent in his private hit squad and wiped out the six in one fell swoop. Better yet, he could have used the same nauseating Iraqi tactic and cluster bombed the neighborhoods those Islamic bastards lived in. Just the thought of the proximal innocent death makes my mouth water. Cheney could have done so much more to protect us if only he ran for president after Bushit, and won, Man that would have been soooo cool. What a nauseating cretin...

And yet even today Yoo is still employed at Berkeley (instead of behind bars as he should be).

I disagree that power was Cheney's sole motivation. He used the power bestowed on him by his Saudi friends on 9/11 to greatly enrich them and himself (by starting the Iraq war, aka the Haliburton Gravy Train and quadrupling the price of oil). Cheney's interests and those of the terrorist financiers were identical. His interests and ours were not.

bubba, I am still waiting to see if bar association in whichever state(s) he is licensed to practice in have the guts to disbar Yoo.

Also, whether the University of California, Berkeley will continue to employ him as a professor law if he has been disbarred.

tanstaafl and bubba,

I agree. Yoo's standing as a lawyer and professor of law needs to be vigorously challenged for his actions while carrying Cheney's water.

The Posse Comitatus Act hasn't been law for years.

I like to imagine the reaction of the media and Congress and the American people if they actually HAD used troops on American soil to arrest "terrorist suspects."

Would everyone have tsk-tsked for a couple of days, but finally agreed that it was necessary to "keep us safe?"

I can imagine the Veep saying, between the hissing sound of his breath mask:

[hssss] Now, the die is cast. [hssss]

By the way:

John Yoo should be deported. I dunno where he came from, but he's certainly no American!

People like Yoo and Michelle Malkin think they can come to this country and pretend to be American by demonizing other foreigners is outrageous. They are fooling no one.

Er, byobotts, Michelle Malkin was born in Philadelphia, PA. Her father, who was a doctor and mother came here on a work permit from the Phillipines. The irony is that MM has railed against citizenship being granted to those from such births.

Just the sort of thing conservatives would be most lathered about if done by Democrats and/or used against people they like.

If HJC Chairman Conyers does not soon start hearings in his Committee on the crimes of the Bush Administration

WE Must Call For His Resignation.

SIGN THE PETITIONS
Demanding
both a Commission of Inquiry
and a Special Prosecutor
For All Their Crimes
at

ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

We must hang in there...
or our children or grandchildren may
be tortured and imprisoned without cause because of our failure.

.

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