Quotes of the Morning: The Men in Black

“For five years, President Bush waged war as he saw fit. If intelligence officers needed to eavesdrop on overseas telephone calls without warrants, he authorized it. If the military wanted to hold terrorism suspects without trial, he let it.
Now the Supreme Court has struck at the core of his presidency and dismissed the notion that the president alone can determine how to defend the country. In rejecting Bush's military tribunals for terrorism suspects, the high court ruled that even a wartime commander in chief must govern within constitutional confines significantly tighter than this president has believed appropriate.”
-Washington Post, June 30, 2006

“How dare they! Hold Fearless Leader accountable to the same laws that he is supposed to enforce? Don’t these people know that the rule of law is only for the little people? Fearless Leader is above all of that. He’s already shown that he cannot be controlled by the Legislature..”
-Skippy

“Sen. John McCain thought he had a deal when President Bush, faced with a veto-proof margin in Congress, agreed to sign a bill banning the torture of detainees.
Not quite.
While Bush signed the new law, he also quietly approved another document: a signing statement reserving his right to ignore the law. McCain was furious, and so were other lawmakers.
[…]
Rather than give Congress the opportunity to override a veto with a two-thirds majority in each house, he has issued hundreds of signing statements invoking his right to interpret the law on everything from whistleblower protections to how Congress oversees the USA Patriot Act.
‘It means that the administration does not feel bound to enforce many new laws which Congress has passed,’ said David Golove, a law professor at New York University who specializes in executive power issues. ‘This raises profound rule of law concerns. Do we have a functioning code of federal laws?’
Signing statements don't carry the force of law, and other presidents have issued them for administrative reasons — such as instructing an agency how to put a certain law into effect. When a president issues such a document, it's usually inserted quietly into the federal record.
Bush's signing statement in March on Congress's renewal of the Patriot Act particularly riled Specter and others who labored for months to craft a compromise between Senate and House versions, and what the White House wanted. Reluctantly, the administration gave in on its objections to new congressional oversight of the way the FBI searches for terrorists.
Bush signed the bill with much flag-waving fanfare. Then he issued a signing statement asserting his right to bypass the oversight provisions in certain circumstances.”
-Associated Press, June 26, 2006

“…and now the Supreme Court wants to get all up in this fight with Dubya. Based on some farcical ‘Constitution’ that they keep going on about the Supreme Court is saying things about how we have to obey treaties and how the Congress needs to actually give specific authorization for the Executive branch before Fearless Leader can do what he wants. Don’t these people know any better? Don’t they see that Fearless Leader is at War with the Media.. um, I mean Terror, and NEEDS the power to quietly torture and spy without these so-called ‘courts’ getting in the way? Well, it is like Fearless Leader always says…”
-Skippy

“Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, July 2, 2003

“Already the lines have been drawn up. Fearless Leader has his boys in the Court ready to rumble. The vote on Hamdan was 5-3, with the dissenting votes cast by Scalia, Alito and Thomas. Roberts had to sit this one out, as he had already made his decision for the Administration in a lower court. All it will take is one little ‘oops’ for one of the old Justices to be replaced by a newer choice who will see the obvious glaring Truth about Dubya’s divine right to rule. One more new Justice could finally fix the courts and get rid of all of those pesky problems like abortion, birth control, the Geneva Conventions and Mexicans. The four horsemen (Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts) are wearing black and ready to march. Take it away Thomas..”
-Skippy

“Thomas said the majority ‘openly flouts our well-established duty to respect the Executive's judgment in matters of military operations and foreign affairs.’"
-Washington Post, June 30, 2006

“Yep. Thomas knows that duty to trust the Executive branch trumps any stupid need for ‘checks and balances’ in our government, or any so-called ‘Constitution’. We need more men like Thomas on the courts to make sure that Fearless Leader is able to rule properly.”
-Skippy

“Ironically, Justice Thomas refers to Justice Stevens’ ‘unfamiliarity with the realities of warfare’; but Stevens served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. Thomas’s official bio, by contrast, contains no experience of military service.”
-Aziz Huq, Associate Counsel of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, June 29, 2006

“Hey, if it was fair to Swiftboat John Kerry’s military record (despite Dubya deserting the National Guard for a while), then it is fair to Clarence ‘What’s that on my Coke?’ Thomas to rip on a WWII Navy vet. When the new America, Fearless Leader’s America, is built on the bones of the fallen Thomas will stand at Dubya’s right hand. And peace shall rule the Earth.”
-Skippy