Tag: bush

Sen. Whitehouse raised the red flag that classified documents revealed that Bush's legal justification for warrantless domestic spying advocated a "legal doctrine for presidential lawbreaking." Sen. Dodd argued that Bush should allow all Senators to read the documents before voting on telecom amnesty.  Sen. Whitehouse obtained the declassification of 3 principles contained in the documents.   These 3 principles constitute general elements of Bush's unitary executive theory, which is a doctrine for presidential lawbreaking. So, how is unitary executive theory relevant to telecom immunity? One answer is that the authority and lawfulness clauses of the telecom immunity may be interpreted by Bush in a signing statement or the courts as Congress codifying into law his theory of the virtually unlimited powers of the unitary executive which trump legislation. This telecom immunity clause would then provide Bush with a nonfrivolous argument that Congress ratified his unitary executive theory, which would provide Bush with retroactive immunity.  

Whoops. During a lively discussion on Fox News about Barack Obama's teen use of cocaine, a Fox reporter inaccurately said President Bush admitted using cocaine in the past.

Via Raw Story which has more details.

Here's the scoop on Bush's alleged cocaine use.

On November 16th, Sen. Dodd introduced legislation to amend Bush's military tribunal law (MCA) which was recently enacted. As Dodd stated, the purpose of his legislation, which will be addressed early in 2007, is to undo Bush's law and seeks to "redesign the court system" and "significantly, accelerate civilian court scrutiny  of the system's constitutionality."  And, defense lawyers are continuing to challenge the constitutionality of military tribunals, which means at some point the courts could decide that any trials should be held in civilian courts.

President Bush's alleged cocaine use was an issue in the 2000 election. It fizzled. He refused to either admit or deny using the drug. Now, bloggers are writing about it because of Kitty Kelly's new book, The Bush Family. Kelly is a tabloid-type biographer who previously has targeted the Reagans, Princess Diana and others. In her book, Kelly claims Bush used cocaine at Camp David when his father was President and in the mid- 60's. Her source is Bush former sister-in-law Sharon Bush.

Personally, I could care less what drugs Bush did in college. College is a time of experimentation, of youthful indiscretions. I mostly share the views of Drug War Rant on the issue.

There is another issue though, and that is, did Bush use cocaine later in life? What does Kelly say about Bush's 40th birthday party at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs? Was he coke-fueled then, dancing on the bar as rumors at the time suggested? It was after this party that he gave up alcohol for good--even though, he says, he wasn't an alcoholic. Did he also give up cocaine then....at the age of 40?

Why is this an issue?