Crisis Time

I knew that there had been rumblings that Bush was insisting that he was above the law. But, I had thought that it would be in the abstract that this particular issue was going to be threshed out in Congress. Maybe even getting the Feingold resolution passed. Now, via FireDoglake and Glenn Grenwald we have this statement by the Department of Justice:

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statutes inconsistent with the Constitution must yield. The basic principle of our system of government means that no President, merely by assenting to a piece of legislation, can diminish the scope of the President’s constitutional power. . . .

Just as one President may not, through signing legislation, eliminate the Executive Branch’s inherent constitutional powers, Congress may not renounce inherent presidential authority. The Constitution grants the President the inherent power to protect the nation from foreign attack, and Congress may not impede the President’s ability to perform his constitutional duty.“ (citations omitted).

I guess I'm like a lot of Americans, I can't believe this is happening. We all thought that when Bush took the oath of office (twice) he was agreeing to obey the law. If the above holds true, what was he swearing that he would uphold? Just the Constitution as he interprets it?

I guess I also thought that the Courts interpreted the Constitution. Now we have this dishonest (c.f. testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee) minion of an idiot (Gonzales) telling us that the President is above the Law and that he determines the law. L'etat c'est moi. Pshaw!

If the above statement remains unchallanged by Congress and the Supreme Court, we are no longer a democracy.