Pass Me A Cold One

You know somebody in hell is passing out big, tall glasses of crunchy ice water because, as I've been doing lately with Pat Buchanan, I am agreeing with George Will.

The administration's argument about the legality of the NSA program also has been discordant with its argument about the urgency of extending the USA Patriot Act. Many provisions of that act are superfluous if a president's wartime powers are as far-reaching as today's president says they are.

And if, as some administration supporters say, amending the 1978 act to meet today's exigencies would have given America's enemies dangerous information about our capabilities and intentions, surely FISA and the Patriot Act were both informative. Intelligence professionals reportedly say that the behavior of suspected terrorists has changed since Dec. 15, when the New York Times revealed the NSA surveillance. But surely America's enemies have assumed that our technologically sophisticated nation has been trying, in ways known and unknown, to eavesdrop on them.

Besides, terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration's argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution's plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and proper" for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers do not include deciding that a law -- FISA, for example -- is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

The administration, in which mere obduracy^* sometimes serves as political philosophy, pushes the limits of assertion while disdaining collaboration. This faux toughness is folly, given that the Supreme Court, when rejecting President Harry S Truman's claim that his inherent powers as commander in chief allowed him to seize steel mills during the Korean War, held that presidential authority is weakest when it clashes with Congress.

I have many issues with the core ideology of classic conservativism, but in a battle of minds, I can almost respect their flawed opinions. You can see some semblance of intelligent reasoning (even though I think it is out of touch, ivory tower reasoning). The reason, however, that most Americans aren't in total outrage over Bush riding roughshod over the law and our civil liberties is because, sadly, most Americans haven't bothered to develop that ability. As Bill Maher once said, they are counting on the "intellectual sluggishness" of the average American. Sadly, the real conservatives of the GOP played along with Bush for much too long in a display of unity against the Democrats. Now it seems as though it is far too late to stop this train wreck and emerging dictator of a President - no matter what these guys say - or salvage the Goldwater/Reagan party they once knew.

^*Yes, I had to look that one up. LOL!