Bush and Cheney have broken the law consistently throughout their reign, often openly, and to the great detriment of our own country and others; when they obey it, they do so more as a matter of convenience than from any fealty to it or any fear of retribution. They're pleased to use the legislature to achieve their ends when they can - as when Congress obligingly immunized administration personnel from prosecution under the War Crimes Act - and to ignore it when they can't. Former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith explains the dynamic as described to him by Dick Cheney's current number two, torture maven David Addington: "We're going to push and push and push until some larger force makes us stop." They have, and that larger force has not materialized - and the administration have been at pains to ensure that the force, if it ever arrives, won't do so in the person of the courts - and the result is a constitutional republic with its framework intact and its guts eviscerated. There is only one remedy, and that's impeachment.Signed,
Not Atrios