- Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into
the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing
the controversial USA Patriot Act.
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- Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked
period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough
anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined
forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr
to oppose renewal.
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- GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew
the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives
still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House
Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
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- "I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm
the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
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- "Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said.
"There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the
Constitution."
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- "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,"
Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
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- I've talked to three people present for the meeting that
day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called
the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."
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- And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of
the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the
shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that
"goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.
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- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White
House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."
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- Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal
beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent.
It doesn't matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite
our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining
document of our government, the final source to determine in the
end if something is legal or right.
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- Every federal official including the President
who takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend the
Constitution of the United States."
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- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes
when someone calls the Constitution a "living document."
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- ""Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a 'living
document,'" Scalia says. "We now have a Constitution that means
whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism,
for Pete's sake."
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- As a judge, Scalia says, "I don't have to prove
that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's
better than anything else."
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- President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution
over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define
marriage as a "union between a man and woman." Members
of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade,
ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on
abortion.
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- Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution
comes from a loss of rights.
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- "We can take away rights just as we can grant new
ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a one-way street."
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- And don't buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot
Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that
infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide
told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the
United States.
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- But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution
is just "a goddamned piece of paper."
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- © Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue
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- http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
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