[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster]
Six days from now–December 9th–is the five year anniversary of the day I mournfully rhyme with Don McLean’s famous song American Pie: the day the country died. That’s the day, of course, when the Supreme Court decided to hear Bush vs. Gore and issued the stay on the Florida election, stealing the election for Bush.
Theft of the democracy and the utterly disastrous Bush presidency (9/11, the Iraq war, crippling deficits, horrible employment, widening class chasm, environmental degradation) has been a disgraceful painful consequence, but the day the country died I was equally horrified at the pernicious effects Bush vs. Gore would have on the very concept of the law itself.
Easily forgotten from that intense period was the feeling and idea of how freakish the circumstances of the atomically close election were–another 500 years could pass in the democracy and another wouldn’t be so remotely close. This facet is reflected in the utterly absurd contention in Bush vs. Gore that this was a eternally unique decision that could not set precedent, a howling laugher that essentially said, well, just this once the law doesn’t mean a god damn thing, we of the Supreme Court can steal. But hey, tomorrow everything snaps back to the same: the law really is a valid human idea.
Shocked, I remember thinking at the time that I certainly wasn’t going to go rob a bank since the Supreme Court said theft was just dandy, but what effect would abrogation of the presidency and the law have on the administration and Republicans in power?
Think about it: what kind of signal does it send to an American Executive branch that when it comes to the law, they are given a free pass? Five years into the total disaster of the Bush presidency an answer is now crystal clear: Bush and Cheney truly do know the law means nothing to them and have become the most felonious administration in United States history.
Bush, Cheney, Rove, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Hadley and Libby are all war felons. Their crimes include lying to start the Iraq war, sanctioned use of torture at Abu Ghraib prison, proposed bombing of Al Jareeza, and civilian war crimes in Fulluja with white phosphorous and Marine snipers.
Libby has been indicted for the felony of obstruction of justice in the criminal investigation of Valerie Plame. Bush, Cheney, Hadley and Rove are felons in the Plame matter, but whether they will be served with indictments remains to be seen.
Gonzales and Ashcroft are felons for circumventing the law in sanctioning torture.
The Administration has consistently demonstrated that habeas corpus means nothing to them with the “prosecution” of Jose Padilla. Many have commented that American democracy collapses with just this singular element removed.
News just broke that the Justice Department knew the Texas redistricting heist was illegal, but overruled that internal judgment and approved it anyway.
Delay is under indictment for money laundering. A continuing lobbying scandal involving Jack Abramoff has already exposed representative Ney as a felon, and has the potential to indict many more Republican congressmen. Cunningham, representative from San Diego, pleaded guilty to a string of felonies last week.
Frist, majority leader of the Senate, is under investigation by the SEC for being an incredibly bad and stupid liar regarding his “blind” trust. A number of felonies are likely in all of this, but whether a complaint for indictment is ever issued is unclear at this time.
Unfortunately the list goes on very much further–abuses and disregard for environmental law are particularly egregious and numerous. Enforcement of labor law remains a total joke, and Microsoft the monopolist was let off.
It’s obvious five years later, Bush vs. Gore ushered in an unprecedented era of elected public servant lawlessness and felonies unknown in the country’s history. What a surprise–they were empirically shown the law means nothing to them, why should they have behaved any differently?
Most painful of all in this nightmare is the blanket denial that still surrounds theft of the election and trashing of the law itself. When that felon hag O’Connor announced her retirement I was appalled, but not surprised, to see that Bush vs. Gore was never mentioned in her legal career history. That little case that installed the worst president of our history and chucked the law in the trash bin? That’s nothing, nothing at all.
Little more can be expected of our corporate whoring press, one supposes, but here, in this space in time with the five year anniversary of Bush vs. Gore so close upon us, it will not be denied and the truth will not be hidden:
Bush vs. Gore was and is the greatest legal disaster in United States history. Not only did it steal the democracy, it set an appalling precedent of total disregard for the law itself, which can be aptly seen in the currently long felon list in the Republican administration and Congress.