Jonathan Turley chimes in on Obama & the NDAA. Another Constitutional scholar is appalled.

[Octafish]

27. Remember in 2001, how most everybody's brains turned to mush after 9-11?

Not Turley's. He sees evil as evil:

Prof. Jonathan Turley: “Stop Being a Country of Chumps!”

William Hughes
September 20, 2006

“Wherever the real power in a government lies, there is the danger of oppression.” - James Madison (1)

Baltimore, MD - On September 18, 2006, the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) held a very informative program to honor the 219th anniversary of the birth of the U.S. Constitution. One of the featured speakers at the splendid event, entitled “Constitution Day at MICA,” was Professor Jonathan Turley of the George Washington U.’s School of Law, in the District of Columbia. He’s a nationally recognized expert on Constitutional law, national security and terrorism-related legal issues.

Professor Turley began his lecture by recalling the struggle to create the Constitution. He called it “a novel experience” and praised its prime architect, James Madison of Virginia, for his genius and tenacity in writing it. (1) “The Constitution,” he continued, “is a common article of faith that binds us, no matter how hateful the debate, because we have a common legacy found in that document. That is why, it drives me crazy when the President (George W. Bush) says: ‘This is our defining moment.’ We had that defining moment in the 1700s, when we agreed to a Constitution that bound us all and it required a leap of faith.

I happened to believe we are living through a crisis of faith,” Professor Turley emphasized. “There are people in our government, who for some reason, have lost faith in their heritage...There is only one rule, in the Madisonian system, that can never be broken. And, that rule is: you cannot go outside the rules...Madison built a system that is idiot proof. God knows we have tested that. We have had morons for president and we are still here. It is a system designed to survive...You have to take the leap of faith. President George Bush is a relativist...He’s a legal relativist. He believes the law is a technicality...He always has. It doesn’t make him evil. It just makes him a man of zeal.”

Background on the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), the site of the conference: It predates the American Civil War. It was founded in 1826, just nine years after Madison finished his second term as president. It is the oldest college of arts in the country and is located on Mount Royal Avenue in the “Monumental City,” near the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the Bolton Hill neighborhood. During WWII, MICA helped to facilitate the training of students to work in jobs, requiring expert drafting and drawing skills, in the important aircraft and maritime sectors, related to the war effort. The organizer for the “Constitution Day” program was MICA’s Robert Merrill, a Professor of Literature and Humanities, who also gave an inspiring keynote address at the affair.

After 9/11, Professor Turley said the Bush-Cheney Gang spoke of the Constitution “as if it were the threat! Why,” he wondered, “after 200 years, this loss of faith in our system? I suggest it is because this administration intentionally set a course before 9/11 to reinvent the presidency...to have an uber presidency...After 9/11, they could have asked to hang Americans on meat hooks and Congress would have granted it. They were getting everything they wanted--immediately...Why wouldn’t the Bush administration go to the Congress and ask for the authority of a military tribunal?”

Professor Turley further asks: “Why would the President assert the authority to create a legal system, that he alone designed--a prison system, that he alone ran--a court system that he created by his own rule and through this, people could be held indefinitely--even put to death--at his discretion? Why would you do that? I think it is all about reinventing the office of the presidency...The checks and balances in the Constitution...designed by Madison...keep ambitions in check-and it [the Constitution}is stable...What has occurred in the last few years is the greatest threat to the separation of powers in the history of this government...Meanwhile, Congress has completely failed to exercise oversight...We’re afraid and when you’re afraid, the Constitution becomes an abstraction...It is treated as a piece of paper...Our worst injuries [as a country] in history have all been self-inflicted...Sending Japanese-Americans [during WWII] into camps, the Palmer Raids and arrests [during WWI]..We always hear about how bad they are [the terrorists], but we never hear about: ‘Who we are!..’ Now, we are even having a debate [in the U.S. Congress] about embracing torture, like waterboarding.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.sanfranciscotelegram.com/articles/view/13799

PS: Some people prove Santayana, regarding repeating the past of Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, where anyone who thinks something that they shouldn't is an "enemy."