Smackdown

This NYT editorial is possibly the harshest I've read from the editors towards BushCo's unconstitutional behavior.

Just before Monday night’s State of the Union speech, in which Mr. Bush extolled bipartisanship, railed against government excesses and promised to bring the troops home as soon as it’s safe to withdraw, the White House undermined all of those sentiments with the latest of the president’s infamous signing statements.

...

Over the last seven years, Mr. Bush has issued hundreds of these insidious documents declaring that he had no intention of obeying a law that he had just signed. This is not just constitutional theory. Remember the detainee treatment act, which Mr. Bush signed and then proceeded to ignore, as he told C.I.A. interrogators that they could go on mistreating detainees?

...

The first provision created a commission to determine how reliant the government is on contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, how much waste, fraud and abuse has occurred and what has been done to hold accountable those who are responsible. Congress authorized the commission to compel government officials to testify.

Perhaps this violated Mr. Bush’s sense of his power to dole out contracts as he sees fit and to hold contractors harmless. The same theory applies to the second provision that Mr. Bush said he would not obey: a new law providing protection against reprisal to those who expose waste, fraud or abuse in wartime contracts.

Frankly, of the four provisions that Dubya has chosen to ignore, this is, to me, the most insidious. He is basically saying to the nation: "fuck you all... I'm gonna let Haliburton siphon off all the cash they can while I am in office... and those whistle-blowers? They'd better think twice on my watch."

This administration is so counter to the principles we hold dear, it isn't funny. They deserve to be hounded to the gates of hell, in McCain's words, for their deeds. I only hope that the next administration doesn't give Bush and Cheney a pass, but holds them accountable for their actions that have so nearly destroyed the very nation that they supposedly serve.