Enemy of the State

There is a mounting case for impeachment (wiretapping, extortion of the military, Plame, torture, intentional and acknowledged violation of laws, etc.) and Balkinization piles on:

I am posting the below with the permission of Professor Walter F. Murphy, emeritus of Princeton University. For those who do not know, Professor Murphy is easily the most distinguished scholar of public law in political science. His works on both constitutional theory and judicial behavior are classics in the field. Bluntly, legal scholarship that does not engage many themes in his book, briefly noted below, Constitutional Democracy, may be legal, but cannot be said to be scholarship. As interesting, for present purposes, readers of the book will discover that Murphy is hardly a conventional political or legal liberal. While he holds some opinions, most notably on welfare, similar to opinions held on the political left, he is a sharp critic of ROE V. WADE, and supported the Alito nomination. Apparently these credentials and others noted below are no longer sufficient to prevent one from becoming an enemy of the people.

"On 1 March 07, I was scheduled to fly on American Airlines to Newark, NJ, to attend an academic conference at Princeton University, designed to focus on my latest scholarly book, Constitutional Democracy, published by Johns Hopkins University Press this past Thanksgiving."

"When I tried to use the curb-side check in at the Sunport, I was denied a boarding pass because I was on the Terrorist Watch list. I was instructed to go inside and talk to a clerk. At this point, I should note that I am not only the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence (emeritus) but also a retired Marine colonel. I fought in the Korean War as a young lieutenant, was wounded, and decorated for heroism. I remained a professional soldier for more than five years and then accepted a commission as a reserve office, serving for an additional 19 years."

"I presented my credentials from the Marine Corps to a very polite clerk for American Airlines. One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said. "

To me, the worst thing about this isn't that Dr. Murphy was detained, or that he was on the No-Fly in the first place. The worst thing about this is that the security guards acknowledged this was sort of profiling was systematic. That the Bush admin is making a habit of intimidating those who they consider to be political opponents. That the Bush admin is willing to sacrifice the Bill of Rights so easily for cheap revenge.

I would be shocked if Pres. Bush personally ordered this guy be placed on the No-Fly list. I would be amazed if he even knew about it. But his employees follow his policies. Obviously, there is a systemic effort to intimidate those who criticize the president, as we witnessed before in the "Quaker terrorist" incident. Add to this Bush's constant appeals to executive privilege, his doctrine that and his consistent opposition to Congressional oversight, and plenty of other abuses/assumptions of power over the past six years, and a clear pattern is emerging: Bush is an authoritarian.

And so he should be opposed. I doubt that impeachment is possible, and that's a shame. But he should be opposed. Republicans won't do it, which is maddeningly stupid. After all, the next president will likely be a Democrat, and he will abuse his power in the same way that Bush has, but the GOP won't have a damn thing to say about it. The "conservative" base, which stopped looking anything like actual conservatism a long time ago, has dug its own grave with its blind support of Bush. Rightly, voters demanded a change in the next election, and the backlash will likely last for a few more election cycles. And the GOP will likely get a taste of its own medicine. And everyone will get screwed.