First anniversary of a dark stain
One year ago today, President Bush signed into law the Military Commissions Act of 2006. This malignant, perfidious law gives the president the authority to suspend habeas corpus for anyone he chooses. It also sanctifies the admissibility of evidence obtained through torture.
For a full year now, our country has been deprived of one of its most basic founding principles: the idea that we cannot be detained without an open, law-respecting hearing on the reasons why. The MCA tossed aside centuries of legal precedent and cavalierly discarded one of the foundational principles of any valid democracy. For a full year now, Congress and the courts have sat in silent obeisance to the Imperial President, just as guilty in their complicity as the worst collaborationists of the Vichy regime.
One year ago, the following exchange occurred between Keith Olbermann and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley:
OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?
TURLEY: It does. And it's a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn't rely on their good motivations.
Now we must. And people have no idea how significant this is. What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values.
It couldn't be more significant. And the strange thing is, we've become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. I mean, the Congress just gave the president despotic powers, and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to, you know, "Dancing with the Stars." I mean, it's otherworldly.
One year ago today, the most fundamental distinction between our country and the despotic junta ruling Burma was signed away by the stroke of a madman's pen.
Happy anniversary.