Dark Bilious Vapors

...on this Topic, and this is great one by Armando (Daily Kos): Newsweek: Blissfully Ignorant of the Constitution:

" When the Media wonders why bloggers have a great deal of contempt for them, I like to point out stories like this one in Newsweek. This story shows such a lack of understanding of the Constitution, our system of government and history that you wonder if anyone at Newsweek could pass a citizenship test. Look how idiotically Evan Thomas and Daniel Klaidman frame the illegal domestic surveillance by the Bush Administration - done in the face of an express prohibition enacted by the Congress - FISA:

"In a perfect democracy trying to strike a balance between civil liberties and national security, there would be reasoned, open debate between representatives of the different branches of government. But human nature and politics rarely work in neat and orderly ways. In moments of crisis, presidents, if they believe in executive power (and most inevitably do), will do almost anything to protect the country. Only after the crisis ebbs does the debate begin over the proper means and ends, and by then the people and their representatives are often shocked to find what the president has done in the name of protecting them. More than four years after September 11, America finds itself debating some of the oldest issues in our history: how to balance liberty and security, how much power we should cede to the White House and whether what the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. dubbed "The Imperial Presidency" amid Watergate is a good thing, a bad thing or something in between."

What morons. We are not debating "how much power we should cede the White House." There is no debate. The Constitution provides for that. Last I looked, no one has proposed a constitutional amendment..."

Karen on 01.02.06 @ 11:32 AM CST