Just a Symptom

I know I use the phrase "must read" often here and I probably over use it but I am going to use it again and point you toward a post by Glenn Greenwald, subbing for a traveling DIGBY. Glenn correctly points out that the latest lawlessness by the President is only the a symptom of the brazen abandonment of the Constitution by this administration. I urge you to read and reread this post and then spread the word about it. If we are not in the middle of a Constitutional crisis in this country then we are only days away from one. Here is a snip but read the whole thing.

The NSA law-breaking scandal cannot be seen as some isolated act. It is merely the most flagrant symptom (thus far) of the fact that we have a President -- with three full years left in office -- who has claimed for himself the right to ignore Congressional law and who believes that virtually all decisions of any real significance in our country are his "alone to make." FISA. The National Security Act of 1947. The McCain Amendment. These are all federal laws -- laws -- which the Administration is openly claiming it has the right to violate.

Shouldn’t we be having much more of a discussion than we have had about the fact that we have a President who believes he has the power to ignore laws? We have had all sorts of vigorous and sweeping debates lately about things like torture, habeas corpus, surveillance powers under the Patriot Act. But those debates are all just gestures. Like George Bush’s signing a "law" which he simultaneously claims he has no obligation to obey, the oh-so-heated debates we’ve been having are all just some sort of illusory role-playing, where we pretend that we have a representative Congress which makes laws. But what we actually have is a President who says he can violate those laws at will because such decisions are "his alone to make."