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   From: o@o.org   
      
   Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'   
   By DOUG THOMPSON   
   Dec 9, 2005, 07:53   
      
      
      
   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.   
      
   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.   
      
   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.   
      
   "I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the   
   Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."   
      
   "Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that   
   the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."   
      
   "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just   
   a goddamned piece of paper!"   
      
   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."   
      
   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.   
      
   Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote   
   that the "Constitution is an outdated document."   
      
   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.   
      
   Every federal official - including the President - who takes an oath of   
   office swears to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."   
      
   Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the   
   Constitution a "living document."   
      
   ""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."   
      
   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."   
      
   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.   
      
   Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss   
   of rights.   
      
   "We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones," Scalia warns.   
   "Don't think that it's a one-way street."   
      
   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.   
      
   But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just "a goddamned   
   piece of paper."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)