Obama releases secret Bush documents

The Obama administration has released secret anti-terror memos from the Bush administration. Along with the admission that the CIA destroyed 92 interrogation tapes, it marks a change in the way the U.S. government will treat U.S. citizens.

“Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech a few hours before the documents were released. “Not only is that school of thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good.”

The newly released documents illustrate just how far off the reservation the Bush team went to violate Constitutional rights in the name of fighting terror.

The legal memos written by the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel show a government grappling with how to wage war on terrorism in a fast-changing world. The conclusion, reiterated in page after page of documents, was that the president had broad authority to set aside constitutional rights.

Fourth Amendment protections against unwarranted search and seizure, for instance, did not apply in the United States as long as the president was combatting terrorism, the Justice Department said in an Oct. 23, 2001, memo.

“First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote, adding later: “The current campaign against terrorism may require even broader exercises of federal power domestically.”

Yep. Those same Republicans that preach the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution, willfully violated it.

Just earlier this week, Rush Limbaugh proclaimed:

We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Of course, Limbaugh apparently doesn’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution…but whatever, right?

He further stated:

Well, the Constitution doesn’t need to be redefined.

Oops. Bush did exactly that, Mr. Limbaugh. Are you going to chastise him? Is Bush Un-American? Is he a criminal?

Just wondering.