With the nomination of Michael Mukasey for attorney general, to replace the Alberto Gonzales, being in the News lately, the issue of Constitutional Rights has once again moved to the front burner of American Politics. Senator Christopher Dodd, much to his credit has been an out-spoken defender of Constitutional Rights:
much of the focus has been on Mukasey's non-answer to if he considers waterboarding torture and thus unconstitutional … “No, I was the first senator among the presidential candidates to say no,” said Dodd in response to a question if he would support Mukasey's nomination.
Way to go Senator Dodd! We need more Senators fighting to protect the Constitution, like you have! You have my respect Sir.
Since my Candidate of choice is John Edwards however, this made me wonder, “What does Edwards think about Protecting the Constitution?”
To see what I found out, read on please …
(BTW, I think an Edwards/Dodd Ticket would be an excellent combination to restore a broken America, too)
I feel so strongly about this. It’s part of my DNA, in a sense. Some of you may know, that I grew up in a household where my father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, here. And, Robert Jackson, the great prosecutor, the great Supreme Court Justice, made the case as others did. That we were going to stand up for the rule of law, even with some of the greatest violators of human rights in recorded history. That we were going to provide a trial for them, that which they never gave to their victims. So I heard all about the rule of law growing up, and how important it is. I didn’t discover this a week ago, or year a go or two years ago. It’s something I believed in very strongly when I served on the House Judiciary Committee…So my history on these matters go back a long way, here. They didn’t come up recently, and I’m urging people to stand up.
If caring about the rule of law is in Senator Dodd's DNA, it's critically important to remember as citizens that the Constitution is our nation's DNA. And this administration's actions against our founding document risks fundamentally altering who we are as a nation.
We have seen strikes made against the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment; the Fourth Amendment, which mandates searches be conducted with warrant; and the Fifth Amendment, which demands due process for all persons.
Habeas corpus. Warrantless wiretaps. Torture. Extraordinary rendition. Secret Prisons. The Military Commissions Act.
Now we see the pernicious idea of retroactive immunity or amnesty for telecom companies who helped the Bush administration spy illegally on innocent Americans without warrant. If this dangerous move becomes law, the courts will never be able to discover what the Bush administration asked these companies and on what grounds. We will never learn what was perpetrated against the American people by its own government, in contravention to the laws of our land.
The efforts we have seen to change the DNA of America do not stop with the Bill of Rights, but tragically have extended into dangerous revisionism when it comes to the purview of the legislature and the executive. Article I and Article II of the Constitution.
The system of checks and balances between the three branches of government is being cast out of balance. The Vice President has gone so far as to suggest he's a previously undiscovered fourth branch of government.
Our Constitution — and our nation — may represent a great experiment in the power for representative democracy to make the world a better place. But the erosions and invasions of our Constitution and Bill of Rights — the DNA of our country — under President Bush threaten to turn America into a modern island of Doctor Moreau. What we get will not be what our Founders intended.
And so while Senator Dodd ties the roots of his passion for the Constitution and rule of law to the household he was raised in and the hard work of his father, we can all find our passion in a need to defend the document that most fundamentally defines who we are as a nation. And with our passion, we can move to act — today — by calling the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to oppose retroactive immunity for telecom companies in the latest FISA legislation.
Update:
Here's Sen. Dodd's speech from the floor of the Senate today on the Constitution, FISA, and rule of law:
