A Tsunami Of Reality

Back on Wednesday, Earl quoted from an email by longtime Newhog reader and helper Kat:

It must be an odd sensation to have believed all this time, or hoped against hope, that Bushco wasn't really as bad as they've turned out to be, and suddenly be awakened by a tsunami of reality crashing over one's delusions, especially when you realize that initial crash is only the first of several gargantuan waves to come.

I suspect that conservative blogger Dr. Stephen Taylor, who also happens to be Associate Professor of Political Science at Troy University in Alabama, knows what that tsunami feels like.

it has been clear for some time that, in the guise of being a “war president” that President Bush has clearly been using these signing statements in an attempt to make himself an interpreter of the constitutionality of laws and to thereby expand executive power as he sees fit. I am going to say something that I am very, very reluctant to say, but there is no other way to put it: when a President of the United States seeks to ignore Congress’ will and to usurp powers that belong to the federal courts, because he simply thinks it is the right thing to do, there is no other word for that than authoritarian.

To be clear: I am labeling this type of action as an authoritarian action because it is a raw assertion of power.

...The notion that the President can ignore federal law, because he deems it necessary is an abrogation of the constitutional order–and cloaking it in the magic word “for national security” shouldn’t be enough to make all of us, as citizens, say “ok, have it at, Mr. President.”

The Congress makes the laws, not the president. The courts have the power to interpret the laws in a formal sense, not the president. Further, the power of the purse constitutionally belongs to the congress, not the president. And the power to raise, maintain and regulate the armed forces constitutionally belongs to the congress, not the president.

Where are all the so-called “strict constructionists” in the Republican Party these days?

...Need I remind the conservatives in the audience that one of the foundational principles of basic conservatism is distrust of human nature, and therefore distrust of government in the hand’s of fallible man? The idea that too much power in the hands of a small number of individuals, or a single individual, is what promotes tyranny?

I will further say this: if the Democrats do obtain control of one or both houses of Congress in the elections and next year turns into hearing-o-rama on the Bush administration’s practices, then the administration will have no one to blame but itself.

I personally want to congratulate the good Dr. Taylor for being, as I described him yesterday, a conservative with a brain and a conscience. I want to thank him for having the integrity to put morality before loyalty. Unfortunately, I don't think the uber-right, for whome loyalty trumphs everything, will echo my sentiments. That's a pity for the Republican party and for the U.S. as a whole. A democracy needs to be more than just one party and if they aren't stopped soon the uber-right will consign the GOP to the wilderness for a generation or more.