Turley Weighs In

I don't always agree with Jonathan Turley, but even when he's wrong he's a brilliant legal scholar. Today, he's right on Shrub.

In some ways, it was inevitable that we would find ourselves at this historic confrontation. Bush has long viewed the law as some malleable means to achieve particular ends, rather than the ends itself. In this sense, there is an eerie similarity between the views of Bush and two of his predecessors: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

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George Bush is a study in relativism. He has long claimed unchecked authority after he declared a “war on terror.” He became a maximum leader subject to few, if any, legal limitations. Repeatedly, the White House has engaged in a type of reverse engineering. Rather than explain the scope of lawful conduct and develop operations within those lines, the president routinely creates operations and then asks lawyers to conform the law to them.

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Bush's claim of inherent authority to circumvent federal laws is virtually identical to the argument made by Nixon in his model of the “Imperial Presidency.” Over time, Bush has combined a relativistic view of the law with an imperial model of the presidency. Also as Nixon did, Bush surrounded himself with lawyers — such as former attorney general John Ashcroft and current Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who told him what he wanted to hear: that once he declared a “war” on terror, he vested himself with maximum powers and was free to use virtually any means to achieve his chosen ends.

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Bush is no moral relativist. He is a legal relativist. While he views morals in absolute terms, he sees the law as fluid and fungible. Just as any moral excuse will satisfy a moral relativist, any legal argument satisfies a legal relativist.

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Principle is rarely convenient in politics, but it remains the dividing line between true statespersons and mere politicians. When it comes to law and war, everything is not relative. At least not for those defending the rule of law.