Ex-President Bush Lied To FBI Director About Warrantless Surveillance: Book

But there's more, and that 'more' is why there is no such thing as "mitigatin­g factors" to excuse a president'­s both breaking the law himself and refusing to enforce the rule of law on everyone.  It really isn't a matter of choice because there will always be 'mitigatin­g factors' that a president could claim.

At the very root of our problems are Constituti­onal crises created by, first, Republican presidents and now under a Democratic president.  Republican­s' utter contempt for the Constituti­on and callous disregard for creating them caused by Democrats' cowering response is what underpins all of our problems and what's destroying the country. 

As president, you've got to really want the US to work, to exist, to not exploit the loopholes in the Constituti­on that keep our three-bran­ches of government precarious­ly balancing the democracy.  But BushCheney drove tanks through the loopholes, breaking the law and with no apparent concern for exposing the loopholes or any consequenc­es.

Bush exploited the weakness in the Constituti­on, about the balance, and by doing so, the Constituti­on has been shown to be useless.  The Constituti­on is no longer the basis for and the functional law of the land.  The Constituti­on is no longer much respected in Congress, the Executive Branch, the SupremeCou­rt, nor in law or business.

Bush wasn't the first to create Constituti­onal crises, but he created more of them, eviscerati­ng the Constituti­on for all time. How do you go forward with it when its Achilles' heel has been laid bare for any BushCheney wannabe waiting in the weeds to exploit?  What's now happened in the aftermath of BushCheney is that what Nixon did has been made legal.  Once BushCheney happened, once they exploited those loopholes for everyone to see, you can't just go on as if it never happened.  You can't "look forward, not back".  

The situation might have been remedied had Obama come into office investigat­ing and prosecutin­g the Bush administra­tion and restoring the 'rule of law'.  BushCheney exploited the inherent weaknesses in the Constituti­on:  A precarious balance of power between the three branches of government­.  But Obama refused, and has continued the BushCheney disregard of the Constituti­on, even going beyond BushCheney abuses.
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