AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

(and for once, that doesn't refer to anything related to school or exams)
Go read this Times article and then proceed to be terrified of just how power hungry this administration is and the magnitude of their lack of respect for everything America stands for. As usual, atrios has more, including an excellent excerpt from a WaPo article. Bottom line - this administration, specifically, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft, though in all likelihood, Cheney and Bush too, believe the President is above the law. Once again, I am inclined to suggest that many of our top officials go re-take a ninth grade civics class. Checks and balances? They exist for a reason! Neither the president, nor anyone in his administration, gets to decide that various laws and signed treaties, specifically ones that apply to war crimes are inapplicable during times of war! During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Ashcroft "...said several times that critics consistently failed to take into account that the United States was at war." That is not an excuse! The test of democracy, and all the wonderful, terrible, bureaucratic nonsense that comes along with it, is not how it hums along during times of peace and prosperity but how it works during the tough times, during the times of impossible decisions, during war time. Moral high ground aside, as Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. states, "There's a reason why we sign these treaties: to protect my son in the military. That's why we have these treaties, so when Americans are captured they are not tortured. That's the reason in case anybody forgets it." What the hell sort of example are we setting in the international community? Oh yeah, the same crappy one we've been setting for years and years.