Those with whom we agree with are not always right.
Those with whom we disagree are not always wrong.
This truism strikes me every time I float through our conservative little corner of the blogosphere. Many of our conservative friends seem willing, to steal MyPetjawa’s phrase, to drink the kool-aid.
It strikes me that conservatives’ traditional respect for the rule of law has become attenuated.
Examples:
Never mind the established law that a husband can make medical decisions for an incapacitated spouse. If it gets the right-to-lifers stirred up, lets pull a little demagoguery and pass a clearly unconstitutional bill of attainder!
Never mind that all the lawyers at the DOJ say that the Texas redistricting violates the Voting Rights Act! It gives us a congressional majority, and our boy has appointed the Texas judges.
Never mind that toture is against the law. We’ll just redefine torture. (Specifically excluded from this argument are the Guantanamo detainees. Regardless of what the Eurowimps and our own MoP say, the detainees are explicitly excluded from Geneva Convention protections. I’m cocerned here with meeting the letter of the law. Detaining illegal combatants stops well short of what we are permitted to do - the Geneva Convention provides for illegal combatants to be executed on the battlefield - and is legal. Torture of those detainees is illegal. You can debate the efficacy or morality of detention and torture, but the legal lines are clear.)
Never mind that Abramoff was buying influence with a large segment of our congressional delegation. Lobbying regulations are obscure, and heck, it won’t “have any traction outsdie of the beltway.” Who cares if some of our guys are corrupt? As Truman said, “he may be an S.O.B, but he’s OUR S.O.B.”
Never mind that key political operative linked the name of a CIA operative (covert or not) in order to punish a political enemy. We can argue that, technically, no law was broken, and hope we only have to throw Scooter to the lions.
Never mind that even the White House tacitly acknowledges that some of their wiretaps broke FISA, arguing that FISA was overruled by AUMF or is unconstitutional because it contravenes the Article II warmaking powers. Let’s argue technical points that will insomnolate (is that a word? It should be.) the public.
One starts to wonder. Is there anything that this administration could do to make bloggers angry?
Some mainstream conservative writers like George Will and Novak seem to have realized that Bush isn’t conservative at all. But the blogosphere (other than our boy Skippy and the cautiously critical Volokh Conspiracy) seems willing to keep drinking the kool-aid.
Note here that I’m not making a pro-Democrat argument. I’m not attacking basic conservative principals, many of which I share. But good lord! Isn’t anyone else becoming alarmed by the apparently cavalier attitude the administration takes toward the law?
