What Chairman Nadler Should Have Done

This evening I sat, transfixed, by the testimony of David Addington and John Yoo, two of the most reprehensible human beings in the Bush Administration.

One thing I noticed, when Addington was talking, is that he sounds and acts just like his boss, Big Time Barnicle Dick Cheney. His mannerisms, his inflections, the tone of voice, and the style of speech are all dead on Dick. Owner and dog I guess.

And having Debbie Wasserman-Schultz call Addington a liar was pretty satisfying, bet she earned some serious hate from the fascists, er Republicans in her district on that one. Didn't seem to bother her that Addington tried to get her to back down (she didn't)

The other thing was John Yoo. In an exchange with Rep Cohen, TN-D on the Bybee memo and international law, Yoo said, at one point, that he didn't know what the international law was on torture so he couldn't speak to the Bybee memo in that regard. Or something to that affect, I'm having trouble finding the testimony, it was after their recess.

If that is true, then what the hell was he doing writing legal memos and justifications as part of the Office of Legal Council? And why would a University like Cal have this moral midget teach law to anybody or anything?

But I digress. Chairman Nadler had to stop several times to make Yoo explain his refusal to answer some questions because the Justice Department forbade him from answering them. After claiming attorney-client privilege, which Nadler said doesn't exist, and pointing out that Yoo was the one testifying, not the Justice Department, what Nadler should have done was this.

Tell Yoo to answer the question, or be in contempt. And when he refused to answer (and he wouldn't have answered, trust me, he is a complete coward and terrified of the Addingtons and Cheney's and all the other associated psychopaths that work in the Bush White House) he should have been cited for contempt and hauled off by the Sergeant at Arms to a jail cell, and for good measure, waterboarded by unknown people under unknown authority.

Then they should have resumed questioning Addington under this changed context, and see what he would say.

Torture Is Not In My Constitution

and Dick Cheney is not the President. I sent this note to Speker Pelosi as a reminder. If Dick Cheney kept that information from Bush, then he has usurped the powers of the presidency, an impeachable offense, or, Bush has abdicated his powers of the presidency, also an impeachable offense.

Not to mention that we are torturing people in the name of freedom, which of course only really works in the worlds of Orwell or Vonnegut.

ABC News, the AP, the New York Times, they all have reported that Vice President Cheney, then Secretary of State Colin Powell, current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, CIA Director Goerge Tenet, other high ranking Bush Administration officials, all knew exactly, exactly, how the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, was torturing prisoners.

I point out Sen. Keenedy's comments: "Who would have thought that in the United States of America in the 21st century, the top officials of the executive branch would routinely gather in the White House to approve torture?" Kennedy said in a statement. "Long after President Bush has left office, our country will continue to pay the price for his administration's renegade repudiation of the rule of law and fundamental human rights."

The United States of America, the nation that gave the world the Declaration of Independence with all of those fundamental rights of man, the United States of America which claims to be a nation of laws, not of men, the United States of America, which once strove to realize the notion that we are all equal in the eyes of the law, that nation now tortures people, mostly innocent people we all know, and everybody from the Vice President on down knows all about it and sanctions it.

But of course George W Bush doesn't know anything about it. But it's okay, because impeachment is off the table, and that single declaration of yours is protecting the country from what, exactly?

What could be worse than crimes against humanity? What could be worse than the Vice President usurping the power of the presidency to promote and advance HIS own agenda? Either Bush knew, or he abdicated his powers to Cheney. In either case he has violated the laws of the Constitution.

And I point out to you that the oath you swore, the same oath that Bush swore, was to that Constitution, and nothing else.

Yet you are too afraid to do what the law demands, what the law and an increasing number of Americans are coming to realize is the only way we can begin to restore the status of our nation as once again, a nation of laws, where all people are created equal.