Turley: Bush terror memos are 'very definition of tyranny'

[bridgit]

Since the release on Monday of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.

"These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want."

Turley believes, however, that there may be worse revelations yet to come. "These memos weren't written in a vacuum," he noted. "The question is what did they do in response? We know, among other things that they created a torture program. ... I think we're going to find out that this was the mere foundation for a greater edifice that has yet to be disclosed."

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_Bush_terror_memos_are_definition_0304.html

[tavalon]

1. I'm looking forward to John Dean's response

I'm sure he sees the administration he was a part of as being downright plebeian by now.

[bridgit]

6. Indeed!

[cliffordu]

13. No kidding..... Nixon was an amateur compared to the NAZI jerks that just

left office.

[Stuart G]

14. Agreed, Turley has said it all.........nt

[BuyingThyme]

2. kcik

[MikeNearMcChord]

3. No to a truth commission, I want Bush officials in prison!

What is it going to take? An official enemies list of Americans targeted for rendition?

[DearAbby]

19. Truth commisstion - 911 commission

WHITEWASH - What we need are TRIALS for treason!

[kath]

4. Investigate, indict, prosecute, imprison. NOW

[Supersedeas]

16. Mr. Holder, the time to show some courage is right now

[tblue37]

5. I get the feeling that Obama's people are letting these things out bit by bit, to

build outrage consistently over time, so that when the time comes to go after certain very real malefactors, there will be more public support for it.

Instead of dumping it out all at once so that the outrage is here today, gone tomorrow, no matter how fierce it might be at the time, he produces something from CheneyBushCo's misadministration, people freak out for several days, pundits pundit about it, and then, as the outrage starts to die down, out comes another revelation and more outrage, this time exacerbated by the remnants of the previous outrage, until finally, as with the Watergate hearings, the public is completely onboard with going after the bad guys (AKA evildoers).

[conscious evolution]

8. I have to agree

He appears to be slowly bringing the pot to a boil.

[Lugnut]

9. I hope that's the case.

I have no confidence in any sort of commission.

[CitizenPatriot]

18. we got us a clever one:-) He isn't one of them but he knows how to

play hardball.

I can't wait to see these monsters on trial.

[formercia]

23. People need this information in small doses

It's difficult to get one's brain around it. It takes time for the reality to sink in.

[gratuitous]

7. Glorioski, not teh tyranny!

I don't think anyone could have imagined . . .

Aw fuck it. We've been all over this for years. Nice to see one or two people finally catching up and being allowed a little oxygen on the teevee. But will it last? Or will it be a two-cycle story to be forgotten before the weekend?

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

[pleah]

11. K&R

[Stuart G]

12. K & R..................put the despot in jail

sounds like King George IV.......throw the asshole in jail...or better yet..stone him..let the stones be thrown by those that were
tortured...

[bridgit]

15. Makes me wonder the purpose of laws at all if only the poor or lesser have to obey them...

Someone from the top needs to come all the way down, do not pass Go; and go straight to jail

[tblue37]

20. Your comment is ironic:

"Makes me wonder the purpose of laws at all if only the poor or lesser have to obey them..."

That is precisely the purpose of laws in an oligarchy--to control us peons and keep us in our place.

[bridgit]

27. Ding! Sometimes irony is not lost it is found: l'assaut à la nouvelle bastille!

[anitar1]

17. K@R

[Marr]

21. The memos on the First Ammendment are particularly interesting to me-- as Turley said,

these things weren't written in a vaccuum. They were written to suit the Bush Administration's purposes.

So I wonder *why* the Bush Administration wanted legal backing for their ability to shut down free speech and a free press. I wonder if this wasn't the leverage that turned the entire corporate media into a Bush Administration propaganda organ.

I would expect corporate news to support politicians with a corporate agenda, and Bush/Cheney certainly fit that mold. But the media's support of Bush really went beyond that kind of bias, IMHO.

[dbt]

24. The Alleged News Media had its lips glued to bu$h's ass

beginning in 2000. From where I sat, the networks didn't seem to need any leverage. It sure looks like they went along with it all quite willingly.

[Marr]

26. That's true-- but that didn't stop the Bush Administration from

complaining about the "media filter".... remember that? It may seem to you and I that the corporate media was 100% in the bag for them, but the Bush team apparently considered even the occasional, mild question to be unacceptable.

[L. Coyote]

22. This is the legal context for the persons who died while tortured. "Instituted terrorism" is what

these memos represent. This is a case study in how state terrorism is done.

[Shakespeare]

25. "These memos weren't written in a vacuum"

That comment is of the utmost importance. Investigate in that direction, and we're in business (for going after Bushco for their many crimes).