Home > Bush on the Constitution: ’It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’

Bush on the Constitution: ’It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’

by Open-Publishing - Monday 12 December 2005
10 comments

Democracy Governments USA

Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.

Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.

GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”

Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine - in the end - if something is legal or right.

Every federal official - including the President - who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”

“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a ’living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete’s sake.”

As a judge, Scalia says, “I don’t have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it’s better than anything else.”

President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.

Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don’t think that it’s a one-way street.”

And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.

But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53

– http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artm...

Forum posts

  • I just noticed you had posted this. But I noticed it too late. I posted it too. You got here first. I’m glad someone else thinks it is as important as I do. I did not mean to try and upstage you. Do enjoy reading your posts.

  • ...and the killed people are not real people in Bush’s world, they are just numbers.

  • Don’t forget that the neocons believe they are here to destroy this place so Christ (sic) can return... they think they are doing God’s (again sic) work to bring the apocalypse. Bush & the madministration are just the tip of the melting iceberg. It’s not just about keeping their oil friends fat and happy... they must be stopped.

    • We as a nation don’t know our constitution and BIll OF RIGHTS. It is easy to understand as it’s not in "Old english" or lawyereze, and even better it’s not very long. George and his neocons while pretending to be christians are really satan worshippers. Would Jesus kill others in an offensive WAR, engage in CIA mind controll projects where continual sexual abuse, etc creates multiple personality disorders to hide manchurian candidate agendas, steal from his neighbors (citizens)through taxation, to give to himself and loyal "friends" or isn’t these the acts of a satan worshipper? The thruth shall set you free-not the lies. The doublespeak is laughable. We are "liberating" not enslaving, getting intelligence not torturing, eliminating WMD’s and making the world safer (don’t look in our arsenals however). Pray and meditate that GOD comes to deliver us from this evil. PEACE BROTHERS & SISTERS

    • Yeah, just read that Don Evans, former Sec of Commerce from this administration has been selected by Russian president Putin to the board of (the Russian oil giant) Rofsnet’s board. (This will need approval from the Duma, said the story).

      Face it America, you have no power as citizens to take pride in anything. Your leaders can be bought for a price.

  • Is Doug Thompson writing for the Onion or is his tinfoil hat on to tight? If he was going to make up stuff about Bush he could have at least added the old an administration source said line to it make it seem like it had some credibility.

    • I too wrote this before I read your blog. Yours has much more detail
      The point is that we have a petulant daddy’s boy who is vicious, irresponsible, and does not hesitate to murder to cover up his stupidities.
      I really hope someone will investigate this story. If true, Bush should be jailed for contempt, for violation of his oath, taken on a Bible, two times, only to disrespect and disregard it as a guide for our democracy. Bush intends to substitute his fundamentalists beliefs for the Constitution and to give his corporate friends full access to the billions of dollars out of their table.
      Peter Fredson

  • There are a lot of similarities with Hitler and Bush. Hitler burned the Reichstag then blamed it on the communist. Then passed the Enabling Act to strip the German people of their civil rights. Hitlers aim was to abolish democracy. 1933 Bush orchestrated 911 then blamed it on Muslim extreamist. Then immediatly passed the Patriot Act to strip Americans of their civil rights. Bushs aim is to abolish democracy. Interesting how quickly the Patriot Act was produced after 911, but then again they had it ready prior to 911 since they were the one who orchestrated it. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAH

    • first bush couldnt tell the truth if it hit him in the face. he thinks, i believe, the world is his to do with as he wants. to spy on the people of this country is but a ploy to take away our rights and to make us think he is doing it for our own good. he did not do his military time as he claims, skipped out and was deceptive in not taking his flight tests as he was ordered to. and he cheated the so called recount of votes in ohio to win election. i think because his father was shot at by saddams people. is the only reason he went to war was to get saddom. and while there, lets see what else we can do . just to make it look like a real war reason . then another thing its ok to lose 2000+ troops . for what, just to pump up how people see him. and to say what he said about the constitution, is unbeliveable he clames he is the president .