George <3 Ossama

When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.

After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a ''signing statement" -- an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law -- declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.

''The executive branch shall construe [the law] in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President . . . as Commander in Chief," Bush wrote, adding that this approach ''will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President . . . of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."

Some legal specialists said yesterday that the president's signing statement, which was posted on the White House website but had gone unnoticed over the New Year's weekend, raises serious questions about whether he intends to follow the law.

A senior administration official, who spoke to a Globe reporter about the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman, said the president intended to reserve the right to use harsher methods in special situations involving national security....

''Of course the president has the obligation to follow this law, [but] he also has the obligation to defend and protect the country as the commander in chief, and he will have to square those two responsibilities in each case," the official added. ''We are not expecting that those two responsibilities will come into conflict, but it's possible that they will."

The best thing that ever happened to Bush was Ossama Bin Laden. That gave chimpy and the republicans the phrase "9/11 changed everything". It gave Bush an excuse to lie his way into war that has done nothing but kill 10's of thousands of people and enrich his buddies in the oil and defense industries.

It has given him the balls to say, flat out, that he is above the law, and he can violate the laws of this nation at any time by merely saying "national defense".

Without Ossama, Bush would be just another stupid-as-fuck rich daddies boy. Can you say "dictatorship"? Sure.. I knew you could..

And while I'm at it.. history will show exactly what happened at the start of the 21st century as a political horror. When the reckoning comes, the stupid fucks who didn't get it at the time will just shrug it off with a "well, I didn't know" attitude.

I'll just say it now.. fuck you.