Serving at the Pleasure of the People

During the Congressional hearings over the fired US Attorneys, you couldn’t help hearing the same phrase over and over again (especially from Republicans) “they serve at the pleasure of the president.”

What the heck does that mean? Does it mean that whenever someone in the government is no longer pleasuring Bush, he can replace them with someone who will pleasure him more? Are we talking about prosecutors or prostitutes? Is he running the government or a brothel?

Just imagine if the boss called his secretary in to tell her that she was hired to pleasure him, and the minute she didn’t she was out the door. He’d be facing a sexual harassment lawsuit so fast your head would spin.

If you want to say that Bush has the power to fire almost anyone in the government (in one way or another), then just say it. We already know that. We know because he’s also been replacing career lawyers in the Civil Rights Division - apparently because they weren’t pleasuring him either. This isn’t about Bush’s power to fire people – it’s about why he did it, and what his pleasure is really all about. Does he take more pleasure in twisting our laws to suit his political ends than he does in establishing justice? Is that what really gets him off?

This “serving at the pleasure” malarkey is a throwback to medieval days when subjects served at the pleasure of their king. A king could wake up any morning and decide to chop somebody’s head off just because he had an off day, and because his word was the law. But Bush is not our king and his word is not our law. In our government the people are sovereign, and the president serves at our pleasure – we don’t serve at his.

The problem seems to be that Bush never realized, he is our employee. He can fire US Attorneys for political reasons, but we can have him fired (impeached) for corruption. He was hired to enforce our laws without fear or favor – not to rip our Constitution to shreds, while enforcing only those laws he wants, against whomever he chooses.

Many people don’t seem to understand that the real difference between tyranny and democracy isn’t in our laws, but in the rule of law - in how our laws are enforced, and who has been given the power to enforce them.

The Soviet Union had a wonderful Constitution with many wise, just and praiseworthy laws – just as Cuba, China and North Korea do today. The only problem is that those who have the power to enforce the laws are taking their marching orders from the party and the politburo, rather than fairly enforcing the laws as they exist on the books. Anyone deemed a threat to the party can be brought up on trumped-up charges. Then after they are tortured into confessing, they will usually sign a statement stating that the laws that strictly forbid torture were never violated. Meanwhile, those doing the party’s bidding can murder and violate any law, while prosecutors and the authorities look the other way.

That’s what I think about whenever I hear someone say, “they serve at the pleasure of the president.” I think about how our laws are being enforced to suit Bush’s pleasure and political agenda, rather than doing the job he signed on to do. I think about how easy it is to cross that line between the rule of law and political tyranny. I think about a study that showed in 229 cases of suspected political corruption being investigated by the Justice Department, 83 percent were investigations of Democrats, while only 16 percent were Republicans.

Tyranny doesn’t mind whether it gets in through the front or the back – swiftly and by way of a coup, or more gradually and stealthily, by way of increasingly corrupt and secretive government officials. However it gets in, it’s always much more difficult to ever get it out again.

Listening to Kyle Sampson declare 122 times during testimony "I don't remember" how he did his job, I couldn’t help thinking - who does this bozo think he’s working for? Who is he lying to protect, and why? Is it Bush? Carl Rove? The Federalist Society? Tony Soprano?

Doesn’t he realize that he works for the people? Didn’t anyone tell him anything? Hasn’t he been cashing our payroll checks all along? Did he think to list his severely impaired memory on his job application? Doesn’t he owe his employers – the American people - an honest explanation? Why does he believe it more honorable to lie to his employers, subvert the rule of law for political ends, and piss on our Constitution – rather than tell the simple truth? What Bible is he reading anyhow? I pity his next employer.

Why is it that Carl Rove can’t testify in public? Since when is some sleazy political operative too important to testify? Isn't he on our payroll as well? Why can’t Monica Goodling testify without perjuring herself? What is it with all these people? What have they been up to? What political cult are they involved with? What drugs are they taking? Why can’t they just tell the truth? Might it “embolden the enemy”? Has telling the truth become the moral equivalent of “validating the strategy of the terrorists”?

When Bush’s “priorities” and “pleasures” interfere with the pursuance of justice, then as a nation we have already crossed that line between a government of the people and political fascism. What many people seem to be overlooking in all this is that Bush, Rove, Cheney, together with their mafia of unethical right-wing lawyers – these people are all supposed to be working for us. I don’t give a damn what pleasures Bush. That’s between him and his wife. I only care whether he’s enforcing our laws without fear (of Carl Rove) or favor, and upholding the oath that he took. Clearly, he isn’t.

Bush loves to go around the country working on people’s emotions, pretending that he was “hired to protect the American people.” But that’s another bald-faced lie. The Constitution says that only Congress has the power both to declare wars and to fund them. In the same way Bush can fire an employee he once hired, Congress can end a war they first authorized, and stop funding a war they previously funded, or fund it only with specific conditions. The founding fathers expressly made Congress the ‘decider’ when it comes to waging war, because they understood how easily kings and dictators are apt to abuse that power.

When Bush took his oath of office, he said, “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Notice that it says nothing about declaring endless wars, or using our troops to blackmail Congress into funding his foreign adventures. That’s called extortion. The president’s job is not to defend the American people, but to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic. He defends the Constitution from foreign enemies (including foreign terrorists) by fighting only those wars that Congress deems necessary to defend it. Not by going around the country pretending to be defending America. He already had his chance to defend America when he ended up dodging the draft instead.

The founding fathers knew that we could not always rely upon a president’s judgment when it comes to war. That a president might easily get carried away by personal greed and a lust for power, or else bog the country down in his own personal squabbles – as kings are apt to do. And you know what? They were absolutely right.