Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

We see a red-faced, glassy-eyed, clueless appearing George W. Bush trotting on stage with steady regularity, facing the cameras and delivering the designated statement of the day.  

What do such statements involve?  Well, it always comes down to the same thing - I need more power and I will discuss this with Congress, meaning I will tell them what the neocons have decided is needed to hand over to the powers that be and if you don't like it, that's too bad.

Senator Christopher Dodd the other day thought it might be a good idea to reclaim habeas corpus after it was seized in a Cheney-Bush neocon power grab.  Do those of you familiar with the law and world history remember reading anything about the right of habeas corpus?

It goes way back to Britain, the Magna Carta and our system of law that was accordingly derived from the common law of the United Kingdom.  Actually the right of habeas corpus is about being judged by a jury of your peers in a timely fashion.

When Bush stares up at the camera with those same glassy eyes of someone who appears truly clueless and divorced from reality he is delivering the steady and unflagging neocon message that "we are in charge" and the rest of you be damned.

Those damned include the legislative and judicial branches in what was devised by Jefferson, Madison and their cohorts as a three-tiered or divisible government.

The idea of modeling America along the lines of a British monarchy was considered at the constitutional convention but quickly abandoned in favor of an institution more in accord with the philosophical concepts of Locke and Montesquieu.  

This government featured a separation of powers.  It was meant to be a check on dictatorial aspirations, that of a king or single ruler.  

How about the government you are a part of, Dr. Rice of Stanford and Chevron?  What about your government?

Senator Dodd's effort to restore habeas corpus was rejected.  The toothless Democrats in the Congress have now gone along with an extension of executive authority to engage in warrantless wire taps.  

Yes, we heard it all before.  Since 9/11 occurred we must make sacrifices.  One of them is to toss the U.S. Constitution into the nearest trash bin and set it ablaze.

Your gang set it ablaze, Dr. Rice, when it scrapped habeas corpus and decided that the protective safeguard that separated a democracy from a dictatorship, the requirement by law of obtaining a warrant from a magistrate, no longer existed.

The big step is to declare a suspect an “enemy combatant” and eliminate all rights under the Constitution and international law. Thank you Patriot Act. Thank you members of Congress for being steamrolled into passing it. How easy you made it for the mighty machine to destroy the rights of individuals. We used to point to nations such as the pre-Nelson Mandela South Africa as models of dictatorship and abdication of freedom.  A central principle that was mentioned was preventive detention, the right to hold a suspect without specifying charges.  

Guess which government now holds suspects indefinitely, Dr. Rice?  It happens to be the one in which you serve.  

Then again, what about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo?  Do democratic governments torture detainees, Dr. Rice?

Then there is the question of rendition, Dr. Rice.  You know, grabbing someone from another country and sending them abroad for detention, holding them as long as you wish.  This is very democratic, isn't it, Dr.  Rice?

So now you are lecturing President Putin on democracy.  How truly impressive!