This clip, wherein Sen. Pat Leahy questions President Bush’s former Political Director about her “oath to the President,” tells us a lot about the way the U.S. government has been run for the last six years.

I think it’s instructive about how President Bush’s aides and advisors have carried out their duties. The most destructive case of this, perhaps, being the departure from our laws and traditions regarding habeas corpus. The President’s legal advisors have given him the ability to detain anyone, anywhere, anytime, indefinitely, without the need to explain why.

The clip also brings to mind the President’s own oath of office. President Bush often speaks of his oath of office, saying that, as president his most solemn duty is to “protect the American people from harm.” But that just isn’t the case.

The Presidential oath of office, written in the Constitution, specifies that the President “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution.” It does not declare that the president’s most solemn duty is to protect the American people, but to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Terrorism can make it very tempting to surrender our liberties in order to feel a little safer. It’s not only up to the American people, but it’s also the President’s most solemn duty, to ensure that we do not.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 10:41 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.