Craven Image, by Chris Floyd

[The2ndWheel]

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/07/21/120.html

Well, that didn't take long. Two weeks ago, we wrote here that the "lickspittle, lock-step" U.S. Congress would scurry to give its approval to the dictatorial powers asserted by President George W. Bush after the Supreme Court struck down those claims earlier this month. And lo and behold, last week Republican Senator Arlen Specter introduced a bill that would not only confirm Bush's unrestrained, unconstitutional one-man rule -- it would augment it, exalting the Dear Leader to even greater authoritarian heights.

A more slavish piece of work can scarcely be imagined. And the implications are profound. Besides providing ex post facto cover for Bush's clearly criminal domestic surveillance programs, the measure is a stinging confirmation that there is no crime the Bushists can commit that the craven rubberstamps in Congress will not countenance. Aggressive war, torture, rendition, "extrajudicial killing" (i.e., murder), spying on citizens -- it's all good for the corporate bagmen, gormless goobers and extremist cranks now polluting the chambers on Capitol Hill.

But the reverberations go even further. Specter's bill also represents a message from the American Establishment, giving its imprimatur to the codification of presidential dictatorship as the new form of government in the United States, replacing the constitutional republic established in 1789. The bill embraces the core of Bush's claim to authoritarian rule: that the president cannot be restrained by any law or court ruling in his arbitrary actions on any "matters pertaining" to national security -- and of course it is the president who will decide, in secret, what pertains to national security and what does not.

[enough]

1. Chris Floyd is right on, as usual.