At 9:13 PM -0700 21/8/09, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>But this is a more healthy obsession than your last one with some
>economist (whose name I forget) so you seem to be improving. ;-)
>
>Bil Bartlett
>
>------
>
>He was a thankfully dead political philosopher hereinafter referred as
>LS. He is deeply involved however, because it was his theories of modern
>state which were something like a combination of Nietzsche and
>Machiavelli that were behind John Yoo and other neocon lawyers in the WH
>and DoD who set up this secret government within government.
>
>The primary feature of Yoo's theory is unconstitutionally broad powers
>self-assumed by the chief executive, without foundation in the
>constitution, current law, legislation, or Congressional approval.
>Remember Yoo's justification was a theory, an argument, and was also not
>a law and was never argued before a court, so it isn't present in case
>law.
Yes, yes, sorry I mentioned it. Obviously all this was settled at Runnymede. You might as well say that King John was "deeply involved" in the Bush Admin refusal to abide by the rule of law.
The point is, they wanted to turn the clock back to a time before the invention of the rule of law. It is irrelevant who they quoted to justify this. That person, whether it was LS or King John, is not "deeply involved", they are dead.
[...]
>Obama is following the same path. I certainly hope he doesn't become as
>arrogant, tyrannical, and defiant of law as Bush. I think he is taking
>the stall, foot dragging, and limit the investigation to controllable
>parameters that Nixon first tried in the preamble to Watergate, where
>the trial of the DNC Cubans and Liddy, or Watergate burglers languished
>for months under Judge Sirica---until Sirica got fed up with WH and
>government stall tactics.
Well at least he says he believes in the rule of law. The previous lot pretended not to have heard of the concept. Obama just pretends not to fully understand it.
Off with their heads! It's the tried and true way to settle this recurring argument with heads of state. They won't do it again and the next bloke will take note of the lesson.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas