Kath just brought this to my attention.
http://progressive.org/mag_wx051807
If I’m reading this correctly, Bush has very quietly granted himself emergency powers not dissimilar from what Palpatine did. In one shot he has eliminated checks and balances that have stood this country in good stead for centuries–not just for himself, but for all presidents. And considering the definition of “emergency” is broad and vague…am I the only one creeped out by this?
With Cheney as the Sith master and Bush as the apprentice, this is a hëll of a way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Star Wars.”
PAD
• 
No, you’re definitely not the only one creeped out by this, since I’m the one who brought it to Kath’s attention. I truly fear for my country right now.
Also note the part about secession. So bush also gets to decide who fills the seats in other branches of the government, as well as who takes his place if he chooses to give up the presidency.
I am torn about this. It actually does seem on its face to be a good idea i.e. insuring the survivablity of the Government in case of a major disaster. On the other hand, Shrub has not exactly been good dealing productively with disasters. Katrina, anybody?
It actually does seem on its face to be a good idea i.e. insuring the survivablity of the Government in case of a major disaster.
Name me a disaster that’s ever happened to this country where this would have made things easier. The only one I can imagine is one where Washington DC was actually attacked (which, granted, almost happened on 9/11 had it not been for those meddling passengers).
“It actually does seem on its face to be a good idea i.e. insuring the survivablity of the Government in case of a major disaster.”
We already have a constitution and an order of succession in place to do that. I’m unclear as to why we require Bush to supercede that.
PAD
“We already have a constitution and an order of succession in place to do that. I’m unclear as to why we require Bush to supercede that.”
The constitution only provides for the Vice President in order of succession; current law only goes as far as the members of the cabinet. This appears to be about maintaining succession in the event of a truly catastrophic event, such as one in which all of those currently in order of succession are killed or incapacitated.
All I have to say is when they start rounding up all the Democratic leaders and putting them in “political dissident camps” I am probably hightailing it for Canada.
So, what exactly is this thing? It’s not a law passed by congress, so what legal weight does it have?
For what it’s worth here’s the full “National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive” at the White House site…
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html
I think what concerns me about this action most of all is that, in the event of a major domestic disaster such as nuke terrorism, Bush can perhaps use it to override the 22nd amendment (limiting presidential term limits) and suspend the 2008 presidential election, effectively keeping himself in office for an undetermined period of time long after he was scheduled to leave.
It’s not quite the full directive. Except for annex A, the annexs are classified. Who knows how many annexs there are or whats in them.
My immediate response is that it looks like someone in the Adminstration actually watched “Jericho” and is afraid we’ll have 6 presidents (any of which would be better than this CURRENT LOSER)
Since these Bushies have done such a bang-up job making the world safer, guess it’s now critical that, when it all hits the fan, they’ve strapped themselves securely into ABSOLUTE power.
Ah, Bush… words fail me. “The worst” doesn’t begin to sum it up. Legends will be rise around this man. He will become to ineptitude what Hitler is to evil. He will be the King Arthur of Suck.
What brilliance. Yeah, if Armageddon strikes, let’s put the mind who gave us Brownie and Alberto Gonzales in command of reconstructing ALL THREE branches of government. Fine idea.
Hey, but if they’re taking resumes, I’d like to see Dwight K. Shrute command the CIA… despite his being, “A: Unavailable, and B: Fictional”.
Given how many times I’ve heard people say “if only we had Jack Bauer”, I’m not really sure the A or B you point out matters much, SlashKaBob.
What, does Bush not want a teacher becoming president, or something? /geek
(Seriously, whomever let Bush loose on the science fiction? Take it back, and apologize to the country!)
Perhaps as disturbing as GWB’s Fuhrer-ambitions is the relative apathy from Congress. It doesn’t seem right to suspend the Constitution by presidential order. Such an attack on the document he has twice sworn to protect and defend sounds very similar to treason.
And you thought the Reagan “Star Wars” initiative involved a satellite? 🙂
It doesn’t seem right to suspend the Constitution by presidential order. Such an attack on the document he has twice sworn to protect and defend sounds very similar to treason.
Hey, Lincoln did it during the Civil War by suspending habeous corpus (sp?) on various occasions.
Hey, Lincoln did it during the Civil War by suspending habeous corpus (sp?) on various occasions.
1. He did it once, not on various occasions
2. It was wrong when he did it, and he was rightly condemned for it
3. Just because 1 person does something doesn’t make it all right for someone else to do it
4. He didn’t try to usurp the Constitution by changing or altering the order of secession (or by any of the other many things that bush has done to circumvant &/or ignore The Constitution)
Actually, Bush has declared himself supreme ruler of hthe Executive Branch in that document. The parts dealing with everything else is couched in advisory, decidedly non-mandatory terms.
As I posted this morning (see link), this is basically the old “in case of nuclear attack” plans dusted off and updated, much like Les Nessman’s “Cincinatti is being attacked by the godless tornadoes.”
It’s also a reaction to the hue and cry about the “slow” federal reaction to Katrina and the Greensburg tornado. “You want a federal response? This is how it’s gonna be.”
J.
Not to compare Lincoln with Bush, Michael, but the former played fast & loose with the constitution during the Civil War more than once.
For example, by ordering CSA-sympathetic members of the Maryland legislature jailed at Fort McHenry to prevent them from voting for succession, and cutting off DC from all Union help.
Lincoln was in the wrong, as the courts ruled at the time and afterward. I think matters of altering presidential succession and duration cut very deep into insurrection and treason. The basic problem with this Administration, beyond its incompetence, is its hostility to Constitutionally mandated checks on its own power. We don’t elect a Tsar, but a President serving within a republican government.
yes, but what did you think of the heroes and lost finales? 😛
oops just saw the other post- my bad!
Agreed. Lincoln was wrong. But it happened anyway, didn’t it?
And with Gonzalez acting as nothing more than Bush’s personal attorney/toady by drafting all manner of legal BS to justify his bosses policies, look for the same to continue in the coming months.
Hey, Lincoln did it during the Civil War by suspending habeous corpus (sp?) on various occasions.
And it was wrong then, too. Prior bad acts by another president don’t justify the current one doing something just as bad or worse. It’s the moral equivalent of a six-yearold claiming that their big brother also cut school/broke a window/whatever. I don’t accept that when the current mal-administration evokes Clinton to justify their curruption/incompetence and I don’t accept it when a face on Mt. Rushmore is evoked, either.
Also, one difference here is that Bush is planning a coup before we have a national emergency. Another is that, as I understand matters, he’s written this thing in such a way that a even localized event like an earthquake could trigger it.
I’m not overly concerned, unless he actually uses it to try and replace members of Congress that are considered casualties. I believe the states those representatives come from have succession rules in place.
Also, I’d be much more comfortable seeing this as an actual piece of legislation. Bush does appear to be trying to unilaterally declare the office of the President as the temporary government in times of catastrophic events. To a certain extent, he’s already got that power with the ability to declare martial law. This seems redundant, and indeed like someone told him about Jericho (curse you CBS…bring back teh Jericho!) and he freaked a little.
PAD,
Your post suggests Bush is setting the stage to actually implement this plan. Setting aside the discussion of whether or not the plan itself is good, I think it is absurd to compare him to Palpatine. Do you really think he (or someone around him) is an evil mastermind setting up all the dominoes for a coup? It is ironic that Bush is seen as an idiot one moment and an evil genius bent on world domination the next.
We already have a constitution and an order of succession in place to do that. I’m unclear as to why we require Bush to supercede that.
Having read Tom Clancy’s book where one plane wipes out nearly everyone in government in all 3 branches (the title escapes me at the moment), your comment surprises me. We live in a different day and age than when the constitution was written. It is now possible for one catasrophic event to almost instantly bring up a need for such a plan. One biological or nuclear weapon at the right time and place would be devestating. The high tech, interconnected community we now live in depends on food being delivered, electricity to keep some of it safe, etc. We can’t just get food out of our backyards anymore. As Hurricane Katrina graphically demonstrated, we are not set-up to cope for more than 24 hours with a lack of food, water, etc.
If, as some suggest, another 9/11 or Katrina could trigger such an executive order, than yes, I have a problem with it. It would take either a direct attack on our government officials (like in Clancy’s book) or something more widespread for me to see it as needed.
The irony is, right or wrong, Bush got creamed for not having a plan to handle a natural disater like Katrina. For him to not have a plan in place for something of this magnitude would be inexcusable.
My fear is not that Bush would abuse this plan. He is only in office 607 more days (according to your clock). It is those who follow (Repub or Dem) who I fear far more. If this is not written well to only apply to something truly catastrophic, then it needs to be corrected.
Iowa Jim
“We live in a different day and age than when the constitution was written. It is now possible for one catasrophic event to almost instantly bring up a need for such a plan.”
After more than 50 years of cold war and the danger of nuclear holocast of much greater proportion, is their no clear plan for a catastrope that will destroy most of the government?
“After more than 50 years of cold war and the danger of nuclear holocast of much greater proportion, is their no clear plan for a catastrope that will destroy most of the government?”
I’m pretty certain there is. I think I’m officially number 28,945 in line should the government suffer catastrophic losses.
Peter David: And considering the definition of “emergency” is broad and vague…
Luigi Novi: Is it? The page you linked to says that it is in case of “catastrophic attack”, not mere “emergency”, and defines catastrophic attack as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”
This does beyond creepy. This is dangerous. I don’t know how many folks tell me that to there is no comparison between the Bush administration and Nazi Germany. Is it, we simply aren’t there yet?
“Extraordinary” is a pretty vague word. It could be argued down to no more than “not the most common occurrence,” or something that happens 49.99% of the time. “Ooooh, I put on a different pair of cowboy boots than I had on the past two days! Extraordinary! I’m the king!!!”
“and defines catastrophic attack as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.”
So if the internet crashes, that’s not a severe economic disruption? If sabotage takes out the power to the Eastern Seaboard, that’s not an extraordinary level of infrastructure damage? 9/11 itself could be said to meet these conditions – stock markets down for days, entire air traffic of the US brought to a halt, Pentagon attacked, President’s reading time of “My Pet Goat” reduced to 7 minutes…
Anyone still foolish enough to believe that this Administration won’t cash a blank check for all it’s worth, given the opportunity?
CHV,
Others have pointed out that you don’t excuse one wrong doing by pointing to the wrongs of another. As for the whys of some of what may have been done, you might check this out.
http://www.factcheck.org/misquoting_lincoln.html
A portion from Factcheck.org:
It is true that Lincoln temporarily exiled a former member of Congress, Democrat Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, a prominent critic of Lincoln who advocated allowing the South to secede. Vallandigham had given a fiery anti-war speech in Mount Vernon, Ohio saying, among other things, that the Civil War was being fought to liberate blacks and enslave whites and that men who would submit to being drafted for the Union army did not deserve to be free men. In a famous letter to Democratic Rep. Erastus Corning dated June 12, 1863, Lincoln defended the military trial and the attendant suspension of habeas corpus, and at one point referring to Vallandigham as an agitator who had been urging soldiers to desert:
Lincoln, 1863: Long experience has shown that armies can not be maintained unless desertion shall be punished by the severe penalty of death. The case requires, and the law and the Constitution, sanction this punishment– Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert?
But there’s historical evidence that the arrest caught Lincoln by surprise and that he wouldn’t have advocated it had he been consulted in advance. The arrest was the doing of Gen. Ambrose Burnside, not Lincoln. The general later offered his resignation to Lincoln after hearing that the President’s entire Cabinet was in an uproar over his actions. Lincoln’s private reply can hardly be taken as an endorsement of what the general did:
Lincoln (message to Burnside, May 29, 1863): Your despatch of to-day received. When I shall wish to supersede you I will let you know. All the cabinet regretted the necessity of arresting, for instance, Vallandigham, some perhaps, doubting, that there was a real necessity for it—but, being done, all were for seeing you through with it.
Even if Lincoln had ordered the arrest it offers scant support for the notion that he favored arresting anyone solely because they “damage morale and undermine the military.” While encouraging draft evasion or desertion may fall under the broad heading of “undermining the military” it is a far more serious matter than the mere stating of political opinions that might “undermine morale.” We also note that today there’s no draft to evade, and we know of no prominent Democrats who are urging troops to go AWOL, making Waller’s parallel a dubious one at best.
The fact that Lincoln exiled Vallandigham was also a matter of political damage control. Burnside’s court had ordered the ex-Congressman held in a military prison for the duration of the war, but Lincoln overruled the sentence and ordered Vallandigham sent through the lines and into the hands of a Confederate soldier near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Vallandigham later slipped quietly back into the Union through Canada and despite the sentence hanging over his head was allowed to resume his political activities unmolested. He was quite prominent, attending the Democratic national convention of 1864 and offering a resolution to make unanimous the nomination of George McClellan to oppose Lincoln for re-election.
There’s a big dif between doing a dumb thing in order to deal with a bigger dumb thing done by some one else and setting yourself up to be able to make a power grab.
Bush and Lincoln aren’t even close.
Spurious thought from abroad:
If this says “Bush is da man” when it all hits the fan, does that retroactively mean that every instance where things were not handled as well as they might have been was his fault?
Cheers.
Thanks for the Lincoln info, Jerry, but please understand that I’m not trying to make excuses for Bush (I think he’s the worst president in 100 years), just point out that constitutional abuses during wartime (real or imagined) are not new.
I have a bad feelng about this…
No, really!
I think its fair to point that congress has had several chances to write law to creator a more clear way to rebuild the goverment to date none of these plans have yet to come up for a vote. I think this is more of a issue congress not wanting its own mortality. And to be honestly when people of these people don’t have to follow the laws they why should they have to look at there own Mortality.
As for Bush taking over the goverment Progressive.org doesn’t strike me as a place to say many nice things about President Bush. I still remember when Repulicans were worried about Clinton doing the same thing. The wheel turns. Bush will step down in 606 days to who ever is elected in nov of 2008, if you worried about this you loosing sleep over a book author who have nothing better to worry about than his hate of the current president.
Good point, SlashKaBob. 🙂
“I’m unclear as to why we require Bush to supercede that.”
I didn’t realize the document mentioned him by name. I just figured it was any ol’ POTIS.
Besides, c’mon… this is like me having a fit over a left wing liberal wacko event, and pointing to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh’s site as proof.
The Progressive even notes a similar post and link to Daily Kos… a *very* left wing liberal kook zone.
RLR
I’m not sure that running up here to Canada will help anyone much with any real or planned fallout of this particular Executive Order until the Harper government’s voted out of office in our next federal election.
I’m not overly concerned, unless he actually uses it to try and replace members of Congress that are considered casualties. I believe the states those representatives come from have succession rules in place.
Senators can be replaced depending upon state laws. In some cases governors can appoint a replacement. In other cases a special election can be called immediately or for the following November.
Representatives cannot be replaced.
If there is a disaster that kills a number of Representatives, there’s no Constitutional mechanism to replace them. That’s actually one of the flaws of the current system, one that can be rectified only with a Constitutional amendment.
Posted by Dwight Williams at May 24, 2007 08:26 PM
I’m not sure that running up here to Canada will help anyone much with any real or planned fallout of this particular Executive Order until the Harper government’s voted out of office in our next federal election.
Regardless of who is in power in Canada at any given time, I’ve always found the assumption that your country is on the edge of its collective seat waiting for our disaffected liberals with open arms to be a shaky one at best. As if Canadian immigration officials are saying, “Hmmmm, we’re running low on pìššëd-off U.S. liberals. Let’s open the floodgates then.”
I don’t trust Bush. I think he’s ignorant on many levels, which makes him dangerous. In an interview in a book about M*A*S*H (I believe it was M*A*S*H the Inside Story of TV’s Most Popular Show by David Reiss, but would have to find it to confirm that’s the book I’m thinking of), the late Larry Linville said of people like his character of Frank Burns, (paraphrased) that we shouldn’t elect them to the city council or other public offices, since their ignorance would be a dangerous thing.
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Frank Burns is in the White House.
So, does that mean I’m overcome with worry and dread about this new directive? No, but I’m not completely at ease with it, either. I’ve read the article and I’ve skimmed through the directive itself, but I haven’t yet read it thoroughly. I’d need to do that before I could make any informative comment about the directive itself. It may indeed be much ado about nothing.
But….
I don’t trust Bush. I don’t equate him with Palpatine, and I don’t think we’re going to wake up one day and find that he’s Keyser Sozed us. I do think he’s a man of mediocre intelligence who tends to be very myopic about various issues, and indeed the world at large. To what degree (if any) Cheney, the religious right, “neo-cons” and “chicken hawks” (and any combination of the above) are actually influencing or manipulating him, or to what degree they’re just boosting his ego and going along for the ride, I don’t know. In either case, it wouldn’t surprise me if he or someone in his administration tried to use a natural disaster, like an earthquake, to implement some or all of this directive.
Just like they used 9/11 as a convenient springboard to attack Iraq.
Oh, it’s quite possible that Bush genuinely believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and/or that Saddam Hussein was a threat, but I think his primary motivation was payback for the attempted assassination of his father.
Plus, Saddam was a relatively easy to find target, not so much with Osama bin Laden, the actual architect of 9/11, the one Bush said we’d get “dead or alive.”
Isn’t bin Laden now among the list of “whatever happened to…?”?
Anyway, the Bush administration blundered into the Iraq war without any real plan for what they’d do next. Just as with his “dead or alive” declaration (after which, as I recall, his father had to (essentially) remind him we weren’t living in a western movie); and his absolute black and white declaration that “you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists”, Bush focused on one narrow thing and didn’t consider alternatives or back-up plans. He basically had “a” plan: remove Saddam from power. After that, like Indiana Jones, he’d make it up as he went. The difference, of course, is that Indy was better at it. No doubt, like the Leader, he had more than one plan in mind. Granted, the Leader made up his plans in advance, and Indy at the spur of the moment; but I’m sure Indy could replace one spur of the moment plan with another at… um… the spur of the moment.
(Kinda scary how two fictional characters are smarter than the president).
Or perhaps someone in his administration convinced him that the Iraq war would be smooth sailing, and he went along with it, without thinking (or asking) a lot of questions about what would happen next. I’d be surprised if he asked, “what if the Iraqi people don’t greet us as liberators?” Bush doesn’t strike me as the kind who could consider such a possibility.
Whether or not they have malicious intentions, I believe the administration- especially Bush himself- is prone to making rash and impulsive decisions, either for their own short-term gains; or because they actually believe they’ll protect the country, or both. So, I could very easily see the administration rashly and impulsively putting this directive into action when it wasn’t necessary, and causing all sorts of constitutional havoc as a result.
If, that is, the wording of the directive is such that constitutional havoc could occur.
Now, like I said, I don’t trust Bush. But that doesn’t mean I would necessarily have felt comfortable with any other president- past or future- introducing this directive. It may turn out that I’d be worried about any president, even one I fully support, having introduced it. But of all the presidents we’ve had during my lifetime, I’ve found Bush most worrisome because of his innate Frank Burnsness. There were times during Reagan’s presidency when I was worried there’d be a war with the Soviet Union, but I wasn’t too worried. Reagan, for all his flaws, struck me as someone more aware of actions and consequences than our current chief executive.
As to future presidents, well, we don’t know what lies ahead, do we? Bush may not be Palpatine, but I hope this directive doesn’t pave the way for a future Palpatine.
One thing I did notice about the directive, however, was that it revoked one issued in 1998, by Clinton. So, in theory, the next president could revoke this one.
Like I said, I haven’t read the directive itself in detail, so I can’t comment about whether it’s good or bad in and of itself, but I can see Bush screwing up what’s good about it, and making what’s bad about it worse.
I look forward to the day Bush leaves office.
You know, in some other universe, he became a barber or something. Lucky other universe people.
Rick
This is some heavy Sith all right. 🙁
Having read Tom Clancy’s book where one plane wipes out nearly everyone in government in all 3 branches (the title escapes me at the moment),
Let’s be realistic, the odds that a single event could wipe out all 3 branches at once are pretty remote. The only time that Congress, the president, his cabinet, and SCOTUS are in the same building is during the state of the union address, and we have a long-standing tradition of sending one cabinet member out of town to be the designated survivor and take over as president if someone nuked the capital. That would enable us to mobilize the executive branch and military as needed.
But that’s it. The president and VP never fly in the same plane just to make sure that a crash doesn’t take both of them out.
Yeah, Bush got hammered for not having a plan, but this is too opened. He’s essentially saying that he could declare martial law on the entire country if a blizzard hit Chicago.
Allyn posted:
Representatives cannot be replaced.
If there is a disaster that kills a number of Representatives, there’s no Constitutional mechanism to replace them. That’s actually one of the flaws of the current system, one that can be rectified only with a Constitutional amendment.
Not so. Article I Section 2 quite clearly states “When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.” That “Executive Authority thereof” refers to the State’s Governor (likely acting in concert with the Secretary of State or whichever official is in charge of elections).
As things stand now, when a Rep dies (or is otherwise removed from or leaves the office), the State holds a special election to replace him/her. If the entirety of the House of Representatives were to die in some massive disaster next week, each State’s Governor would call for an election to replace them. These House members would then serve until the 2008 elections (at which point they would choose to run for re-election or not). If a massive wiping out of Congress creates a conflict with a State’s election laws (some states mandate deadlines for filing for a run for office), it’s possible that the appointee might remain in office longer than some of his fellow appointed House members, but he would, at some point, have to face the electoral process.
With Senators, the Governor simply appoints replacements to serve out the remaining time of the vacated seats. Let’s assume that the whole Senate is wiped out tomorrow. If one Senator has 3 years left in his term and the other Senator has 1 year left, the replacements would serve 3 years and 1 year respectively. In the case of a Senator elected this past November, an appointment might be made until the next Statewide election; whoever wins that election would then serve out however long was left for the term. By no means, however, would any of these replacement Senators serve a 6-year term, until they run for election in the year their seat “expires”. The Senator in the first case (3 years left) would run in 2010 and the second case (1 year left) would run in 2008. The replacement for the one elected last November would run for the office whenever the election is set (presumably, the election date would be set for July or August, but possibly not till November); whoever wins *that* election would serve until 2012.
Admittedly, the biggest single problem would involve the absentee balloting process. Any election has to allow for ample time for absentee ballots to be mailed and returned which is why I suspect most of the mandated elections would require at least 3 to 6 months before a new elected Congress could take office.
In anyone else’s hands, this would be a non-issue. Government should have a contingency plan in case of attack, severe catastrophe etc. This gives too much power to one man, be it Bush or the next President. However for a President who has notoriously disregarded certain aspects of the US Constituion this is foretells of more shenanigans- basically what it entails is a power-grab- rather than have a continuity of Government, he appoints himself the Continuity Guy without a full understanding of just what that means, just like he does with everything else. Bush has grown from a spot to a full blown melanoma on the skin of the world. The entire Bush family should just move to Saudi Arabia, since that’s where most of there money is.
Reading Iowa Jim’s post up there, a thought popped into my head, although not really related to his post. In order for this to all go bad the way we’re afraid of, wouldn’t that require all the support staff Bush will need to be in lockstep with him? Now, granted, in an emergency there’s a lot of confusion, but wouldn’t someone stand up and say, “Hold the darn phone, here!” Or do I have too much faith in human nature?
Jesus Christ! Did anyone read the darn order! It didn’t do anything! It’s basic an order requirering the Executive Branch to have a continuity plan. It doesn’t even outline a specific plan, just that a plan must be developed. It then posts the requirements for the plan, the first being:
“(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government; “
I also points out that each brach is responsible for developing their own plan, but that they should coordinate with each other. It also lays out requirements for local states, and plans for excercises to practice contuinity plans for local governments. This order is a guidelines things, not the specific plan, so there’s no chance it could do what people are saying even if it was intended to!
Ðámņ. I know we all want to knee jerk hate Bush, but come on! No wonder the standard person’s eyes glaze over every time something legit is pointed out.
This doesn’t appear to be an Executive Order and it’s not a bill or law. It appears to be nothing more than a policy statement. What is the true weight of law behind it?