Good Gore Summary

WaPo columnist David Broder provides a good summary and supporting arguments for Al Gore's contention (from his Monday speech--view the whole thing here at CommonDreams) that President Bush and his administration are rampantly ignoring our nation's Constitution. Noting that Gore might well have an axe to grind (seeing as he did outpoll Bush nationwide--and most likely in Florida, too--back in 2000, only to have the Supreme Court install the BushCo Administration), Broder takes a cautious eye to Gore's speech, and also dismisses the notion that "Bush took the nation to war on the basis of false intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." But on the whole, he finds a lot of agreement in Gore's (rhetorical) challenge:

But the other cases Gore cited are more troubling. The Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, for which only low-level military personnel have been punished, traces back through higher and untouched levels of command to the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House, all of which failed in their duties to ensure that the occupation forces were adhering to recognized international standards for the treatment of prisoners.

Similarly, the administration's resistance to setting and enforcing clear prohibitions on torture and inhumane treatment of detainees in the war on terrorism raises legitimate questions about its willingness to adhere to the rule of law. From the first days after Sept. 11, Bush has appeared to believe that he is essentially unconstrained. His oddly equivocal recent signing statement on John McCain's legislation banning such tactics seemed to say he could ignore the plain terms of the law.

If Judge Samuel Alito is right that no one is above the law, then Bush's supposition deserves to be challenged.

Gore's final example -- on which he has lots of company among legal scholars -- is the contention that Bush broke the law in ordering the National Security Agency to monitor domestic phone calls without a warrant from the court Congress had created to supervise all such wiretapping. If -- as the Justice Department and the White House insist -- the president can flout that law, then it is hard to imagine what power he cannot assert.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has summoned Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to a hearing on the warrantless wiretap issue, and that hearing should be the occasion for a broad exploration of the willingness of this administration to be constrained by the Constitution and the laws.

The committee should keep the attorney general on the witness stand as long as it takes -- as long as it spent examining the qualifications of Judge Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts, if it comes to that. The stakes for the country are that high.

Gore is certainly right about one thing. When he challenged the members of Congress to "start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of government you're supposed to be," he was issuing a call of conscience that goes well beyond any partisan criticism.

Amen, Brother Broder.