Burn the Flag...

..Not the Constitution.

Brilliant (if ranting) column on what's up with the Shrubs and the ongoing shredding of the Constitution. I guess the Founders were just kidding, after all.

'Harvard professor Laurence Tribe recently delayed the latest volume of his seminal constitutional law treatise. His reason? Constitutional law is in such flux that "profound fault lines have become evident in the very foundations of the enterprise, going to issues as fundamental as whose truths are to count and, sadly, whose truths must be denied." '

...

"The Nation piece states that new Chief Justice Roberts "is unlikely to offer much relief" from this unprecedented expansion of executive power. The full truth is much worse than that. In fact, this was the primary reason I opposed the Roberts nomination from the moment his name was announced: his unquestioning deference to an omnipotent executive, at least in times of war. Since war is now our permanent condition if the administration's propaganda is to be believed, that means Roberts will defer to the executive until his retirement, 30 years or so from now."

...

"It is vital that everyone understand what that power means: in terms of the constitutional principles involved and their implications, it is the power of an absolute dictator. The power is that of the president to declare that you, or I, or any other American citizen is an "enemy combatant," the power never to have to present his reasons for making that declaration, and the power never to have to charge anyone with any crime at all. And we can be locked up for the rest of our lives."

...

"I will repeat the central point about the Padilla case. If the Supreme Court hears the current appeal (which I am almost certain it will), and if the Supreme Court upholds the president's "right" to throw any American in jail for the rest of his life simply on the president's word, then liberty and freedom in this country are dead. The rest is simply a matter of time. The president will have the same fundamental power that any other absolute dictator has: the only questions will be whether he chooses to use it, and whether he chooses to use it against you."

This IS the single most important issue arising out of the GWOT, not missing nukes/WMD, not Scooter Libby, not Dick Cheney, not Tom Delay, THIS! If these bastards succeed in gutting the Constitution, we've lost, even if we kill every terrorist on the planet, democratize every country on the planet, and end global warming in our time. At least, if we democratize every country on the planet, there will be someone able to come rescue us. But will they give a shit after our geopolitical criminality?