This is exactly right:
I don’t trust the Bush Administration to do the right thing. Period.
That’s the bottom line for me with the illegal NSA domestic spying mess and every other problem that has come down the pike: I don’t trust this Preznit to make a decision based on what is right for the American public — but, rather, I believe this Administration will do whatever it takes, no matter how illegal or immoral, to prop themselves up and maintain power. Perhaps it’s my own personal bias — I haven’t felt this way about any other Republican Administration, to be honest, so it’s not a liberal versus conservative thing, but something that I find inherently wrong about this particular group of malignant cronies.
Sell out liberty? Check. Manipulate religion, and thus true believers, into doing whatever is necessary to maintain a hold on power? Check. Cynical Orwellian “truthiness?” Oh yeah…check. Ruin someone’s life if they get in your way, including not giving a rat’s ass about the consequences of using wedge issues to divide and conquer? Check. Ends justifies whatever means necessary? Check and double check.
Which is why this is so disturbing:
Feb. 13, 2006 issue – In the latest twist in the debate over presidential powers, a Justice Department official suggested that in certain circumstances, the president might have the power to order the killing of terrorist suspects inside the United States. Steven Bradbury, acting head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, went to a closed-door Senate intelligence committee meeting last week to defend President George W. Bush’s surveillance program. During the briefing, said administration and Capitol Hill officials (who declined to be identified because the session was private), California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Bradbury questions about the extent of presidential powers to fight Al Qaeda; could Bush, for instance, order the killing of a Qaeda suspect known to be on U.S. soil? Bradbury replied that he believed Bush could indeed do this, at least in certain circumstances.