Bush a constitutional violator!

USAToday is reporting today about the release of many Justice Department documents written during the Bush administration. These documents clearly show that the Bush administration and the Justice Department were struggling with first and fourth amendment rights following Sept. 11, 2001. The story also points out that the administration eventually abandoned most of these positions. The sorry truth is that Bush, and every, I'll say it again, every, wartime President before him has violated the Constitution of the United States in the name of keeping us safe or protecting the nation or national security. This is not a new phenomena and in the end, every President who has done so has been largely repudiated by the Supreme Court, usually after the end of the war. At least with Bush, the Supreme Court bothered to do their job during the war. Still don't believe me? Here are some examples: Lincoln suspended the writ of habeus corpus, Wilson arrested dissenters and had them imprisoned, FDR, well, can we say Japanese internment, During the Korean conflict, we had de facto Presidential support for people like McCarthy, then during the Vietnam era, well, that's the Civil Rights era as well, anyone really want to challenge that the constitution wasn't being violated then? Of course, maybe not by the Presidents, but nonetheless, wartime violations. So, it is actually quite common, not the exception that modern day politicians would have you believe. Do I like it? Absolutely not, but I do prefer that people be honest about it. In fact, the sweeping powers that the Justice Department documents refer to are only a pen stroke away. I addressed in an earlier post all the onerous executive orders that could be enacted with a single stroke of a pen. You think Bush was bad, wait to see what would happen if a President decided to do that. So, I agree Bush was wrong, but no more wrong than any previous wartime President and I wish people would be honest about that. However, with each wartime President, the powers of the executive have been expanded until now the President is more powerful than the constitution and our founders intended. This has got to change, but it won't. It will go on and on until one day, we'll have a President who will just ignore the legislature and perhaps the courts entirely. Think that can't happen here? Guess again.