Surprise Surprise

El Presidente made waves yesterday by officially admitting that the CIA is running secret prisons around the world. He admitted this because he's having the CIA transfer some high-level prisoners from those "detention centers" to the one everyone knows about.

And he's transfering these formerly invisible prisoners there so that they can be tried and found guilty and probably killed. (Revenge is a dish best served cold.)

All of this has gotten a lot of people talking. Mostly they're talking about the proposed legislation for wackadoo military tribunals (we could call them something else, but we reserve that kind of label for things other countries do).

Quickly:
- hearsay evidence (I wonder if Bush has read the Crucible)
- evidence garnered through torture
- not allowing the defense to see the evidence against it.
in sum, completely ludicrous. But of course, the man's very serious.

I would like, for just a moment, to take you back to your 9th grade civics class and the Three Branches of Government. The executive branch does not get to make up its own laws. This is very basic. They have to work inside the bounds of the laws set up by Congress. If the executive branch acts outside of those bounds, then what should happen? What is the Congress' check on over-reaching executive power?

Hmmmm...

Oh. Right.

Now, you could make an argument that the executive branch, in times of great crisis, should not be handcuffed from performing vital and neccesary (and heretofore unseen) services. And there's certainly some validity in that.

But what is the current crisis? We're approaching the five-year anniversary of 9/11. And something like 3 years in Iraq. So it's hard to see what impending crisis prevented the current administration from going to Congress and asking for new laws... to legalize wiretapping without a warrant... to legalize extraordinary rendition... to legalize Bush's cockamamie tribunal scheme.

They've had years to ask Congress to make new laws, but they didn't. Instead they ignored the law (both federal and international), ignored Congress, ignored the president's duties to the country and the consitution. Because they didn't want to take the chance that Congress might not give them everything they wanted (though it's hard to believe they wouldn't have -- spineless cowards).

They impeached and censured Clinton for lying about an extra-marital affair. Why wont they consider impeaching Bush for usurping the power of the legislative and judicial branches? For undermining the very foundations of our government?