What hath Bush wrought?

This president and his administration have so undermined the foundation of rights and laws on which this nation was built that our system of government is on the verge of total collapse. Why, then, does the NY Times give aid and comfort to these enemies of democracy by publishing a Bush-worshipping op-ed by John "Torture" Yoo that makes the surreal claim that Dubya has "restored balance" to the system of checks and balances put in place by the Founders? Glenn Greenwald asks this question (among others) as well and in his inimitable way decimates Yoo's arguments. But the most striking observation Glenn makes is contained in the paragraphs below.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Shrill, hysterical lefty partisan blogger

Just look at the things we're debating -- whether the U.S. Government can abduct and indefinitely imprison U.S. citizens without charges; whether we can use torture to interrogate people; whether our Government can eavesdrop on our private conversations without warrants; whether we can create secret prisons and keep people there out of sight and beyond the reach of any law or oversight; and whether the President can simply disregard long-standing constitutional limitations and duly enacted Congressional laws because he has deemed that doing so is necessary to "protect" us.

These haven't been open questions for decades if not centuries. They've been settled as intrinsic values that define our country. Yet nothing is settled or resolved any longer. Everything -- even the most extremist and authoritarian policies and things which were long considered taboo -- are now openly entertained, justifiable and routinely justified.

This country has endured far greater threats to its security and continued prosperity than the so-called "global war on terror." How can it be that a single day of terror attacks--horrific though the attacks were--scared us so shitless that we became all too willing to surrender the crown jewels of democracy to a mad king and his cadre of ass-kissing courtiers in exchange for their promise to keep us "safe"? And now, having seen how empty that promise was, having realized that a gang so incompetent and bumbling could never have made good on it in any case, why do we allow the nightmare to continue? We debate the fine points of what is and isn't torture; we countenance a system of gulags where "enemy combatants" are held indefinitely without charges and without counsel; we openly discuss the benefits of granting dictatorial powers to a psychopathic dry drunk with a messiah complex. My God, these are the kinds of issues that were settled at Runnymede almost 800 years ago!

I have no answer, only another question: Have we become so craven, so lazy that we're no longer willing to keep the Republic our ancestors built and preserved for more than two centuries? Have the conveniences and material comforts of modern life come to mean more to us than our own souls? If so, then the light truly has gone out in the "shining city set on a hill." Nothing left to do but go through the pockets and look for loose change.

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