Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 7,2008

Saddam Hussein once wrote: ?Law consists of two lines above my signature.? Richard Nixon expressed a similar view: ?What I?m saying is that when the president does [something], it?s not illegal.?

The Bush administration has embraced a view of executive powers that combines Saddam?s dictatorial presumption and Nixon?s self-interested corruption, and built on it even further. According to the administration, officials who helped build and operate its apparatus of illegal torture are above legal accountability, whether through the courts or Congress.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has requested that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former vice presidential chief of staff David Addington, and former administration legal counsel John Yoo ? appear before his committee.

The administration has replied that Congress lacks the Constitutional power to question those officials about their performance while in the executive branch. The Bush doctrine dictates that these underlings enjoy the same royal immunities supposedly vested in the president and vice president.

If this lawlessness goes unpunished, Americans will owe the first King George an apology.

Let us take back the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.