The lies belong to Bush and the statistics confirm them:
Challenging laws essentially means that the President chooses to disregard laws because he has decided they don’t really apply to him or the U.S. in a particular situation. As evidenced by the graph, every President does come across laws that are unsuitable or unenforceable, so there will always be Presidential challenges. However, when it becomes clear that Dubya Dubya III has challenged more than twice as many laws as the three U.S. Presidents before him, it becomes pretty concerning. It is even more concerning when one notices the date of the data – roughly halfway into his eight years as Chief Executive of the United States of America. It is impossible to determine how many more laws Bushie has since bent or broken, but it’s safe to say the number has gone up in the last 3 years – ignoring subpoenas and leaking the identities of covert agents are two rather prominent examples of illegal acts. Pretty disgusting disregard for the law from someone who is nominally supposed to be enforcing them, wouldn’t you say?
I can’t believe you’re that naive. “Challenging laws” boils down to a hostile legislature grandstanding by bleating and throwing one law after another that a President can’t abide anyway under his remit, including all of those “the President MUST withdraw forces from Iraq and Afghanistan in 30 days” things that are logistically impossible, as well as that “All people under 16 will have their health insurance paid for under SCHIP, even if it was niether debated in legislature, nor the wealth of the family of that dependant child.”
It’s horseshit. A set-up. And you buy it because it props up your world-view, and gives you a reason to feel good about sticking pins into your own little hate puppet.
Boys, boys, let’s not argue. There are lots of things that a reasonably intelligent person could conclude from this data. Like, maybe in the past three decades, challenging laws has come into fashion. Or maybe Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter challenged no laws at all. Or maybe for, like, five minutes, the 108th Congress stopped the cuddle and snugglefest and actually became hostile, hurling pointless, unenforcible legislation at our long-suffering commander-in-chief with the sole purpose of creating this here bar graph and making him look bad.
Here’s the facts, guys: Chris, you don’t need a graph to tell you what we already know, way back in our instinctive and reptilian brains. The onus is on the administration to prove to us why the legislation necessitates challenging. We are not obligated to ask why; they’re supposed to tell us. The fact that they haven’t (and by “they,” I mean the president, his cabinet, the state department and the department of justice) indicates a decidedly guarded policy that should, frankly, put Americans on edge.
And Joe, it doesn’t matter if you agree with the administration’s legislative challenges or not, or if you feel that congress was full of meanies that year who made it impossible not to challenge. And it doesn’t matter if you agree with the excused (homeland security) that the president has used to explain his tactics (no-warrant wiretapping). And maybe you even think that bad stuff that libruls despise (waterboarding) are actually good things. I’m still asking you to consider for yourself if George W. Bush’s motivation for setting this war (and the illegalities leading to it) into motion was based in the purest, most patriotic altruism.
It wasn’t. You know it wasn’t. And even if you think it’s great, you still know that nobody in the administration did it to keep you safe; they did it to establish a stronger presence in an oil-rich region, to qualify their Christian-based xenophobia of Arabs and Arab-Americans and to generally make lots and lots of money through no-bid contracts. And can you honestly tell me that you’re comfortable with that?