I Suppose That Depends On What the Definition of "the Law of the Land" Is

[Thom Little]

The Vice President appeared at the Heritage Foundation yesterday, and shamelessly announced the following, presumably with a straight face:

I work for a President who . . . has made clear from the outset, both publicly and privately, that our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime. The President himself put it best: He said, "We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them."

"Our duty to uphold the law of the land admits no exceptions in wartime."

A stunning assertion, given the source. Can the Vice President fairly be accused of flat-out dishonesty here?

Perhaps not, once one understands that the "law of the land" that trumps all others for this Administration is the Commander-in-Chief Clause of Article II of the Constitution, before which all mere statutes are but a formal pittance. This is, after all, the Administration that has unapologetically announced that no statute "can place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response." "These decisions," say the Bush Administration, "under our Constitution, are for the President alone to make."

As I noted a couple of weeks ago, what this claim means is that numerous statutes -- bills signed by the President (or in one case, enacted by legislative supermajorities over his veto) -- are unconstitutional, and the President may ignore them when in his judgment they impinge on his discretion in determining how best to address the war on terrorism.

So much for the Torture Act, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and FISA, and the federal assault statute, and the War Crimes Act, and the 60-day-limit provision of the War Powers Act, and now the McCain Amendment prohibiting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees overseas.



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