Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admits that President Bush personally intervened to prevent Justice Department lawyers from conducting a review of their department's involvement in the NSA domestic wiretapping program.
Department of Justice officials are stunned:
A senior Justice official said that the refusal to grant the clearances was "unprecedented" and questioned whether the clearances were denied because investigators might find "misconduct by those who were attempting to defeat" the probe from being conducted. The official made the comments without knowing that Bush had made the decision to refuse the clearances.I think Bush is just acting on advice in all these matters; I don't think he has the intellectual curiosity to actually bother figuring out what is going on. Cheney or Gonzales or somebody else gives him a paper to sign, and he signs it.
It's not like he really gives a shit about the rule of law or the US Consititution, which according to him is "just a god-damned piece of paper."
This Justice Department probe came from a curious little office in the organization called the Office of Professional Review. Their job isn't to figure out if the NSA can spy on Americans. They exist to watchdog Justice officials, and make sure they're adhering to the law as they, er, make sure the rest of us adhere to the law.As Charles Sullivan points out:
Democratic government is transparent, not secretive. In a democracy the people know what the government is doing and are active participants in the decision making process. Clearly that is not the kind government we have...
If the government does not respect the law why should any citizen? Why should the government operate outside of the law while the citizens remain subject to it? If one group of people is forced to adhere to a specific code of conduct and another group is not, what will be the result? We have only to look around us for the answer...
If the law does not apply to everyone equally and at all times, it should not be applied to anyone at any time. If that is the case, then let us have anarchy.
