HE WOULD BE KING

The American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Bush Cabal to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.

The evidence now makes it hard to avoid the conclusion that George W. Bush has repeatedly and insistently broken the law and the corrupt Republican Congress has shirked its constitutional duty to hold him accountable.

I believe a president who breaks the law poses a threat to the very foundation of our democracy. As Americans with a stake in the future of our country, we must act quickly and decisively — and pull our country back for the brink of a constitutional crisis.

How can George W. Bush not be breaking the law when:

* He claims that he can imprison American citizens — anyone he chooses — indefinitely without an arrest warrant, without charges, and without even informing their families?

* He claims he has the right to eavesdrop on American citizens — anyone he chooses — without a warrant and without regard to established law enacted by Congress to prevent just such abuses?

* He claims the U.S. can mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture in U.S. facilities around the world?

* He claims the authority to kidnap individuals in foreign countries and deliver them for imprisonment by autocratic regimes that are infamous for torture?

Can it be true that any president has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is, "Yes," are there any acts that can be prohibited? If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop, imprison citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can’t he do?

George W. Bush has no problem bending the truth to suit his purposes. He repeatedly created the false impression that Saddam Hussein played a role in attacking our country on September 11, 2001, and that he was about to build an atomic bomb and give it to Osama bin Laden.

He and Donald Rumsfeld made us believe that our troops would be welcomed in Iraq with flowers and they would encounter no difficulty or resistance as they went about the task of quickly putting a democracy in place and that we wouldn’t need many troops because it would be a cakewalk.

All those impressions turned out to be false and now our troops are paying a very heavy price.

This president has never let the truth get in the way of satisfying his backers on the far right. This is a president who:

* Allowed energy companies to set our nations energy policies behind closed doors and in secret.

* Attacked Social Security to satisfy ultraconservatives.

* Loosened environmental laws to improve the profits of corporate donors, er, polluters.

* Allowed pharmaceutical companies to design the Medicare drug benefit to maximize their profits rather than serve our elderly.

Faced with the threat of global warming — an imminent and truly planetary catastrophe — George Bush’s only response has been to launch a campaign of disinformation so his contributors in the oil industry can continue to rake in record breaking profits without pause. Just one more example of this president failing the American people to serve the special interests that support him.

The good news is America is waking up to this president’s destructive and narrow agenda. We have come to see that a president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government.

In the history of our nation, no group of lawmakers has dodged its responsibility to the American people more than the current Republican Congress.

We have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces.

It’s a disaster.

November looms large.