Sara Taylor took an 'oath to the President', but apparently not to the Constitution

[swag]

Run time: 01:08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlSIwJgX5J4   Posted on YouTube: July 11, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 11, 2007 By DU Member: swag Views on DU: 3515

 

[Rude Horner]

1. It looked like the whole concept of the "Constitution" ...

was lost on this woman.

[speedoo]

2. Thanks swag.

Well done, Sen. Leahy. Sara seems to be worried about a contempt citation, let's hope she has reason to worry.

[peace13]

3. Boy oh boy,

that was a deer in the headlight look if I have ever seen one!

[Arkansas Granny]

8. Absolutely! She looked terrified.

[lefador]

27. No she did not....

She look defiant, the fact that she barely looked directly at Vermont's senator meant three things:

1. She is lying
2. She has utter contempt for the person addressing her
3. She hasn't develop her social awareness from her early junior high days


Some people think that defiance is only expressed when looking directly at the eyes of the interrogator, and that is a common misconception. Think back at times you may have been annoyed with someone in a fairly social situation, a lot of those times you may not have faced directly that person at all whenever feeling an elevated degree of contempt for that person in the exchange... In fact, I am sure that most of the times making sure a lot of us move our eyes away from a person in a visible way whenever we feel contempt. It is a reptilian way of showing disdain/lack of respect.

Same goes for people who feel real shame/remorse. They will make sure that they face directly the people who are scolding them if they know they are in the wrong for two main reasons: you want to reassure that you respect the people performing the scolding, and you want to make sure that your portray your remorse back to them and it is a feedback loop that requires constant monitoring. Humans not only communicate through words, body language and facial expression are the other part of the equation. When you know that you are in deep shit, you scout the person with power for any sign/feedback from their facial expressions not just their words.

What this lady was doing was simply saying: "whatever jackass" in plain sight. She has no remorse and does not recognize the senator as an authority figure in an even remote fashion. Had she been formally charged, and the Senator had any sort of impact on her well being (be it a prosecutor, or a judge that can send her traitorous ass to jail)... you would have seen a different attitude, with her eyes firmly placed directly towards the Senator.

Again, why aren't these people facing a tribunal? All we get is these people talking to yet another commission that gives them yet another chance to piss on our institutions. What a fucking farce....

[tblue37]

30. I thought she looked nervous, shifty, and very aware of the camera. n/t

[aquart]

9. I thought she looked impatient.

Like, "Why is this old guy yakking to me?"

[BeliQueen]

19. I agree

I think it's the dismissive way she's agreeing with him. It's like she's saying "Whatever" in that condescending tone this administration has with the Congress.

Hold her in contempt, put her in jail, and move on.

[triguy46]

21. Me too. She was thinking "Yadda yadda yadda."

She still thinks that King * will reign forever.

[swag]

4. It speaks volumes about the entire administration.

[Sanity Claws]

5. And she's a lawyer??

Unbelievable.

[triguy46]

22. Another Liberty grad?

[EVDebs]

34. Drake Univ , Des Moines IA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Taylor

and her dirty work for *

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1310171

[alcibiades_mystery]

40. She's not a lawyer

She's a political shill.

[Az]

6. Bam!

So there.

[whistle]

7. True believers = fascism ....the brain washed loyalists to BushCo

<snip>
Universal fascism, freedom betrayed:

What is Mr. Bush doing in your name?

Craig B Hulet? (a.k.a. Sarah Taylor 07/11/2007)

07/30/03: A true believer doesn’t ask any questions. A true believer accepts no answers from others. A true believer believes in what he believes, believe it or not. Mr. Bush may be one of these, he has stated it this way: "I believe what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." He has in fact hinted that his wars in the Middle East are Holy Wars. Israeli paper Harretz says that according to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Bush told him, "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them." (Source: Al Harretz, 06/26/03, Israel).

I do not know if he really believes all this, or even believes what he says he believes. Nobody really knows anyone this deeply. But what we are hearing when he makes these kinds of statements: "Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘To the captives, "come out," and to those in darkness, "be free.""; this is what he told U.S. troops on May 1st when he declared "we won." Soldiers have unique ways of responding to combat; in Vietnam, where I both served in combat and protested the war simultaneously without ambiguity, we just said it was just FUBAR. You may translate it freely. But nevertheless we must listen to what Mr. Bush says and take him at his word. We must read what his closest advisors think about and how they formulate policies. It is, in the end, what these elite "think" that causes them to "do."

In every age...the ultimate sources of war are the beliefs of those in power:

their idea about what is of most fundamental importance

and may therefore ultimately be worth a war.

-- Evan Luard, International War

Maybe one of the elite themselves put it best on the subject of Empires and their vulnerability, when Charles A. Kupchan stated "I use the term elite and decision makers synonymously to refer to those individuals responsible for formulating and implementing foreign and defense policy. To study their motivations and beliefs offers the most direct and accurate means of tracing the key considerations that shape policy."

(The Vulnerability of Empire, 1994, Cornell, Page 5, Footnote 9)

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4275.htm

[Nunyabiz]

11. So on top of being a Treasonous war criminal

and stealing 2 elections, destroying the constitution & bill of rights, causing the entire planet to hate our guts, he is also a Delusional Psychotic.

Yet Impeachment is off the table?

[whistle]

18. As long as Bush is viewed as having a mental disorder he will be

...treated with compassion and get close care and sympathy.

We need to revise that perception and just call Bush and Cheney what they really are, THUGS AND CRIMINALS!

[RufusTFirefly]

12. Monkey Boy as creepy cult leader?

Clearly there are lots of people involved in this Administration for the money and power (Exhibit A: Dick Cheney), but one has to wonder whether some of the Dim Son's followers, especially those who have been with him for a long time, aren't under some sort of weird, Heaven's Gate-like spell.

The idea of Bush as a charismatic leader would be laughable if it weren't so damn frightening.

[smoogatz]

15. A lot of fundies believed he was chosen by God to overturn Roe V Wade

and bring on Armageddon (and hasten the second coming). They saw the 2000 SCOTUS decision to appoint him as God's direct intervention. A lot of the Bush appointees in the DOJ are handpicked from radical fundie universities--so yeah, it seems laughable, but there you are.

[triguy46]

23. You're right, but I take every opportunity to ask why they never tried?

They had the president, the house and senate and couldn't muster the legislative muscle to pass (for state approval) an amendment? They don't give a shit about abortion, they NEED abortion as a whipping boy for the base.

[smoogatz]

25. They don't have to pass an amendment

if Bush can stack the SCOTUS with enough wingnuts--which he appears to have done.

[whistle]

10. Arlen Specter at the end of Sara Taylor's cover-up still jumped in

...to protect her or at least shield her from a Contempt of Congress citation. If you watch the rerun of the video later on C-span you may be able to catch this exchange.

[peace13]

13. Dear Arlen...

hasn't he done enough for us already?

[smoogatz]

14. They can cite her (or Meiers, or whoever) all they want.

There's absolutely nothing to stop Bush from using his clemency powers preemptively, across the board, to protect himself. If he can do it with Libby and get away with it, he can pardon the entire executive branch, or anyone else that's in a position to testify against him. That's the advantage that the virtual tie in the Senate (and the "what's the big deal" silence of the media) gives him over Nixon.

[swag]

16. Loved the early Atrios comment: "Why is Tracy Flick testifying before Congress?"

[Tab]

17. Nicely spanked

and it looks like she hasn't been spanked since she was a little girl.

[triguy46]

20. This is exactly what is wrong with this administration: Cult of personality

Just as the bimbo asst AG stating in tears "I only wanted to serve the president...." now we have another stating their allegiance to *, with no sense of ownership to the Constitution or the public. Pretty much says it all.

[Emit]

33. They're called Right-wing Authoritarians

Bob Altemeyer, the psychologist whose studies John Dean used in his book, Conservatives Without Conscience, has a message ...

From Altemeyer's book, The Authoritarians
Seven deadly shortfalls of authoritarian thinking

Chapter Three
How Authoritarian Followers Think

... research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence
of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning,
highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a
profound ethnocentrism, and--to top it all off--a ferocious dogmatism that makes it
unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic. These seven
deadly shortfalls of authoritarian thinking eminently qualify them to follow a wouldbe
dictator. As Hitler is reported to have said,“What good fortune for those in power
that people do not think.”

1. Illogical Thinking

~snip~

... High RWAs indeed had more
trouble remembering details of the material they’d encountered, and they made more
incorrect inferences on a reasoning test than others usually did. Overall, the
authoritarians had lots of trouble simply thinking straight.

~snip~

... authoritarians also have trouble deciding whether
empirical evidence proves, or does not prove, something. They will often think some
thoroughly ambiguous fact verifies something they already believe in.

2. Highly Compartmentalized Minds


... authoritarians’ ideas are poorly integrated with one another.
It’s as if each idea is stored in a file that can be called up and used when the
authoritarian wishes, even though another of his ideas--stored in a different file--
basically contradicts it. We all have some inconsistencies in our thinking, but
authoritarians can stupify you with the inconsistency of their ideas. Thus they may say
they are proud to live in a country that guarantees freedom of speech, but another file
holds, “My country, love it or leave it.” The ideas were copied from trusted sources,
often as sayings, but the authoritarian has never “merged files” to see how well they
all fit together.

~snip~

3. Double Standards
When your ideas live independent lives from one another it is pretty easy to use
double standards in your judgments. You simply call up the idea that will justify
(afterwards) what you’ve decided to do. High RWAs seem to get up in the morning
and gulp down a whole jar of “Rationalization Pills.”

~snip~

4. Hypocrisy
You can also, unfortunately, find a considerable amount of hypocrisy in high
RWAs’ behavior.

~snip~

5. Blindness To Themselves

If you ask people how much integrity they personally have, guess who pat
themselves most on the back by claiming they have more than anyone else.

~snip~

6. A Profound Ethnocentrism

... authoritarians see the world more sharply in terms of their
in-groups and their out-groups than most people do. They are so ethnocentric that you
find them making statements such as, “If you’re not with us, then you’re against us.”
There’s no neutral in the highly ethnocentric mind. This dizzying “Us versus
Everyone Else” outlook usually develops from traveling in those “tight circles” we
talked about in the last chapter, and whirling round in those circles reinforces the
ethnocentrism as the authoritarian follower uses his friends to validate his opinions.

~snip~

The ethnocentrism of high RWAs makes them quite vulnerable to unscrupulous
manipulators.

~snip~

You’ve probably already figured out that high RWAs generally do favor a
tough law and order approach to crime. And you know what? If somebody comes out
for that during an election, but only after polls show this is a popular stand,
authoritarian followers still believe him. It doesn’t matter whether the candidate really
believes it, or might just be saying it to get elected. High RWAs tend to ignore the
many devious reasons why someone might lie and say something they find agreeable.
They’re just glad to have another person agree with them. It goes back to their relying
on social support to maintain their ideas, because that’s really all they’ve got besides
their authorities (and one “last stand” defense to be discussed soon).

~snip~

7. Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense

... they have a dogmatic streak in them a mile wide and a thousand denials deep.

~snip~

... if the arguments against you become overwhelming and persistent, you
either concede the point--which may put the whole lot at risk--or you simply insist you
are right and walk away, clutching your beliefs more tightly than ever.
That’s what authoritarian followers tend to do. And let’s face it, it’s an awfully
easy stand to take. You have to know a lot nowadays to stake out an intelligent,
defendable position on many issues. But you don’t have to know anything to insist you’re right, no matter what. Dogmatism is by far the best fall-back defense, the most
impregnable castle, that ignorance can find. ...

http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/chapter3.pdf

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1284808&mesg_id=1284808
"Speak Out Now or Forever, Perhaps, Be Silenced"

[thereismore]

24. Uhm. ..Uhm...Uhm... she has nothing to say. Put her ass in jail for contempt. nt

[Redstone]

26. The White House sure does like to hire Blonde Barbie Airheads, doesn't it?

Redstone

[Jade Fox]

36. It's not an accident.....

I think there is a deliberate attempt to make Conservatism "sexy", no doubt hatched in one of those many Conservative think tanks. I can just see those guys sitting around saying, "What we need is HOT CHICKS!! Scour the country for babes willing to become well-paid conservative mouthpieces!"

Coulter, Ingrahm, Malkin, Hasselbeck, etc. sure aren't promoted because of their brilliant thinking. And this Taylor woman; who gets a job with that much prestige and money at her age?

[RobertSeattle]

28. Andrew Sullivan just pointed to this video as well

[L0oniX]

29. Traitors in a time of war should be shot

I'll leave it up to you to decide who are the traitors!

[StatGirl]

31. Maybe she did take an oath to *

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if there were a separate oath that these brownshirts take. They've borrowed everything else from the Third Reich; why not this, too?

"Permanent Republican Majority" = "Fourth Reich"

[NBachers]

32. Jail Time

Send Taylor and Meiers to jail for Contempt of Congress. Dispatch Federal Marshals to the White House and put the entire administration in restraints. Waterboard them all and then ship them off to secret prisons. Draft the Useless Bush Twins and put them on the ground in Iraq. Imprison all Republican and Corporate traitors and war profiteers for life. Apply the Mussolini Solution wherever and whenever it's warranted. Out nation has been stolen from us. It's time to take it back from these murderous criminals. Use whatever force is necessary. Now.

[johnnyrocket]

35. Cult of personality, a scary time in America.

[whistle]

37. I would like to see an accurate transcript of this exchange including

...Ms. Taylor's stuttering and rambling response verbatim, because in addition to the visual body language that reveals her to be lying, in attempting to correct her earlier misstatement about her oath to the "President" she clearly again stumbles over her explanation that she indeed owes her allegiance to the president. Now Senator Leahey repeats to her that her understanding of her oath is apparently incorrect and explains why. Although Sara Taylor acknowledges that she understands, it is very obvious that she is in duality about that understanding. She admits that she took an oath to uphold the constitution, but then she says that means to be obedient to the president. I have to conclude that although she says she only took one oath, she understands that oath to mean something entirely different. What oath is she talking about?

Well, this is the oath of office for public officials such as Representatives, Senators and holders of high office:
FEDERAL OATH OF OFFICE
5 USCS § 3331

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter.”


This is the oath of the Department of Justice office holders:
"I (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,
foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to
the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully
discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So
help me God."


Here is the oath which soldiers in the U.S. military take:
"I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD. "


And finally here is the oath which German Waffen SS took in Nazi Germany:
"All officers of the SS were required to take the loyalty oath. Raising their right hand and their left hand placed on their officers sword the oath went as follows. 'I swear to thee, Adolph Hitler as Fuhrer and chancellor of the German Reich, my Loyalty and Bravery. I vow to thee and the superiors whom those shall appoint, obedience until death, so help me God.'"



I did find this titled "The President Truman Loyalty Oath of 1947" for all employees of the federal government. Perhaps this is still in effect or has been resurrected under BushCo:

<Snip>
Truman Loyalty Oath, 1947

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 3 -- The President 1943-1948 Compilation or 3 CFR, 1943-1948 Comp

PRESCRIBING PROCEDURES FOR THE ADMINISTRATION OF AN EMPLOYEES LOYALTY PROGRAM
IN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT

Whereas each employee of the Government of the United States is endowed with a measure of trusteeship over the democratic processes which are the heart and sinew of the United States; and

Whereas it is of vital importance that persons employed in the Federal service be of complete and unswerving loyalty to the United States; and

Whereas, although the loyalty of by far the overwhelming majority of all Government employees is beyond question, the presence within the Government service of any disloyal or subversive person constitutes a threat to our democratic processes; and

Whereas maximum protection must be afforded the United States against infiltration of disloyal persons into the ranks of its employees, and equal protection from unfounded accusations of disloyalty must be afforded the loyal employees of the Government:

Now, Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including the Civil Service Act of 1883 (22 Stat. 403), as amended, and section 9A of the act approved August 2, 1939 (18 U.S.C. 61i), and as President and Chief Executive of the United States, it is hereby, in the interest of the internal management of the Government, ordered as follows:

<MUCH MORE under Parts I to VI>

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst203/documents/loyal.html

Finally, I located this document which HAS TO BE A JOKE, right? Or maybe not, based on what Sara Taylor mumbled during her testimony:
<snip>


<link> http://www.geocities.com/g_smly/Loyal_citzen.pdf

[bridgit]

38. the eternal sunshine of the republican mind, her little glances aside are to me...

the most telling, cold blooded; she/they will not be denied or still others will be made to pay for sins they have not committed

[alcibiades_mystery]

39. That was about the greatest smackdown ever

"Mmm hmmm"
"Mmm hmmm"
"Mmm hmmm"

She looked surprised, not that Leahy was scolding as if she were a truant sixth grader, but because she suddenly realized that there may be something deeply wrong about her entire belief system.

"No," Leahy said. She almost took an infarction...