Real Kato Blog: Political Assbaggery

The Roberts Court steers us back to 1964, while the White House tries to take us back to 1775.

The return of segregation! The Supreme Court has ruled that public school assignments cannot be made on the basis of race. So school districts that want to achieve "racial balance" are not allowed to use race-based policies.

The four conservative members of the court (Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts) would have liked to make that policy absolute. Howver, Justice Kennedy dissented from portions of that opinion, saying that achieving racial diversity may still be a compelling interest for school boards, and that policies that result in achieving racial balance are allowed. So there'll still be plenty of loopholes that allow schools to fight segregation.

Still, this is a pretty dark day for civil rights. The Court is taking a disturbing turn towards the past. They seem to suggest that if we turn a blind eye to the racial problems that still exist in this country, they'll magically go away. Or even worse: maybe they don't want those problems to go away at all.

Bush and Cheney are exempt from all laws, apparently. Cheney states that because the office of the Vice President is "not part of the executive branch", he does not have to comply with executive orders issued by the White House. Meanwhile, Bush is ignoring a subpoena from Congress regarding the firing of U.S. attorneys after the last elections.

Let's look at Cheney's madness first. The controversy centers around a 1995 executive order on how to handle classified information. The order requires government offices to provide annual reports, and to be subject to periodic audits. Cheney, though, asserts that he is not subject to this order. Now, I can accept that the executive branch of the government is free to define its own policies, and I can accept that Cheney has not broken any laws here. But if that's the argument, they should change the executive order to reflect that. The assertion that Cheney isn't a part of the executive branch (because he's also President of the Senate) is ridiculous, especially in light of the fact that he claimed executive privilege in his dealings with energy lobbyists.

Now speaking of executive privilege... Bush is asserting that privilege in defying Congressional subpoenas over the Alberto Gonzalez scandal. His claim is that his staff must feel free to have frank and honest discussions without having the threat of Congressional oversight hanging over their heads.

However, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly pointed out, executive privilege is not an absolute right that allows the White House to cover up any wrongdoing, especially if it comes to violations of the law. And while it's not proven that Gonzalez or anyone has broken any laws, the assertion of executive privilege to block a Congressional investigation is a serious abuse of executive power. Executive privilege is supposed to be one of those things that is used to protect information critical to national security... it's not a grant of immunity against all Congressional requests. Republicans: if you believe that Clinton was rightly required to testify in the Monica Lewinsky thing, you have to believe that Bush is required to give up information in this case too.

Or, I guess we could just accept that Bush is the King of America, Cheney is the Duke of the Potomac, and "freedom" is just another word for "nothing left to lose".

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