LOL! Bush Proclaims Law Day

[DeepModem Mom]

Proclamation by the President: Law Day, U.S.A., 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/04/20070428-2.html

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WP: A Law Day Unto Himself
Beyond Presidential Power, What Is Bush Upholding?
By Ruth Marcus
Tuesday, May 1, 2007; Page A17

....At least this year's milquetoast (Law Day) theme -- "Empowering Youth, Assuring Democracy" -- isn't quite as uncomfortable for the administration as last year's, "Separate Branches, Balanced Powers." (The American Bar Association picks the theme.) Last year's proclamation was hard to take, with its ode to the "wisdom of the Framers' design" and its warning of "the risks that accompany the concentration of power."

Luckily for Bush, these proclamations tend to be short, so he didn't have to explain how they squared with his warrantless wire-tapping -- despite a statute that requires warrants.

Or a view of presidential power so inflated that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was moved to declare that a "state of war is not a blank check for the President."

Or the blizzard of signing statements asserting presidential authority to ignore whatever law he had just approved....

But if last year's theme was particularly ill-suited for the Bush administration, this year's Law Day seems especially ill-timed.

I could point, here, to the president's determination to retain as the nation's chief law enforcement official an attorney general who is manifestly not up to the job.

I could point to the decision to fire eight U.S. attorneys-- a move that looks increasingly disturbing with each e-mail dump.

But the best recent illustration of the hollowness of the president's Law Day rhetoric involves the administration's continuing assault on the ability of those held at Guantanamo Bay to obtain legal representation and adequate review of their detention.

Remember, the administration's original position on Guantanamo detainees was that they weren't entitled to any legal process whatsoever. They were, the administration said, "enemy combatants" captured on the battlefield who could be held until the cessation of hostilities, whenever that might be.

Talk about a "shining example of justice" -- the first time a Guantanamo detainee held without charges as an enemy combatant got to see a lawyer was in September 2004, after the Supreme Court intervened....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/30/AR2007043001330.html?hpid=opinionsbox2