From Capitol Hill Blue

The Rant
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53




Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval
Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing
the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period
immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger
that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined
forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr
to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous
provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad
at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House
Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the
Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case
that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s
just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they
all confirm that the President of the United States called the
Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States
is little more than toilet paper stained from all the **** that this
group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned
piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel,
wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It
doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It
doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite
our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the
defining document of our government, the final source to determine –
in the end – if something is legal or right.

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath
of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United
States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone
calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says.
“We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean.
The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution
is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over
the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define
marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress
have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging
from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on
abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a
loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns.
“Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a
necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that
infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave
aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution
of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a
goddamned piece of paper.”

© Copyright 2005 Capitol Hill Blue

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