Submitted by ye old scribe for consideration as both a safe and a feisty choice for Veep in the Obama campaign: Mike Gravel.

Ain’t a-goin’ to happen in all probability, but wouldn’t it be hoot-and-a-half to see the G.O.P./McCain slime factory trot out the tack of “he’s too damn old?”

Absolutely and indubitably a must-read (emphasis added):

Thomas Romig, a major general who was the Army’s judge advocate general from 2001 to 2005, agreed that the JAGs were pushed to the side: “It was a disaster,” he said.

[snip]

“As they viewed it, due process is legal mumbo jumbo,” said Romig, who’s now the dean of Washburn University’s law school. “They wanted to get them, get the facts and convict them. … If you’re caught as a terrorist, you’re presumed guilty and you have to prove you’re innocent. It was crazy.”

When Romig objected to pushing the boundaries of interrogation procedures during meetings in late 2002 or early 2003, he recalled that civilian defense officials replied that the time for law had passed.

“Guys, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. It’s time to take the gloves off,” Romig said he was told by Marshall Billingslea, a deputy to Douglas Feith — who was then the undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon’s third-ranking official.

Romig said that he and other military officers asked, “Do you realize the implications of what you’re saying?” Source

’nuff said.

The universality of the essential toolbox of liberty today has been reiterated.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s opinion for the majority in Boumediene v. Bush (06-1195) and Al Odah v. U.S. (06-1196) was an almost rhapsodic review of the history of the Great Writ. The Suspension Clause, he wrote, “protects the rights of the detained by a means consistent with the essential design of the Constitution. It ensures that, except during periods of formal suspension, the Judiciary will have a time-tested device, the writ, to maintain the ‘delicate balance of governance’ that is itself the surest safeguard of liberty.” Those who wrote the Constitution, he added, “deemed the writ to be an essential mechanism in the separation-of-powers scheme.”

Even though the two political branches — the President and Congress — had agreed to take away the detainees’ habeas rights, Kennedy said those branches do not have “the power to switch the Constitution on or off at will.” Source

A bit more:

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.” Article

That 5-4 margin for the supremacy of the Constitution — of it being a living documentation of inalienable creed — is, once again, a key reason why the occupant of the White House should not be an adherent nor espouser nor enabler of dogmatically retrogressive ideological blather (i.e., John Sidney McCain III). Who were that dissenting 4 who raised the flag of fear above the flag of law? Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts (attribution).

Lady Liberty cannot — must not — be waterboarded; her torch once quenched allows — nay, encourages — the reign of darkness.

Do we seek to make the future or break the future?

Ye old scribe votes for the former.

Let’s do it. Together.

… and 1 Giant Step For We The People

If ye old scribe could be granted one boon, it would be that the very first thing on the morning following inauguration day come January, the next president would append an official signature to this executive order:

All executive orders signed by President George W. Bush are herewith rescinded.

12 words. Is that too much to ask?

Is it too much to ask to reassert freedom — to stop cold the yet ongoing mauling, evisceration and outright rape of the Constitution a president swears to “preserve, protect and defend” (citation) in the inaugural oath?

UPDATE May 29, 12:25 p.m.: Rumblings of reason?

Prefaced by stating upfront that ye old scribe is beyond displeased with the hand of candidates we have been dealt, and would call strenuously for both a new deck and a new dealer (not to mention a New Dealer), this is the section heading under which items most tied to the U.S. 2008 elections will be lumped.

That there is debate over something as basic as the rule of law, over as bedrock a principle as one could express, stands as a testament to the havoc wreaked by the woebegone G. Walker adminitsration, who have, contrary to their stated goal of “exporting” democracy, deported it.

Sen. Chris Dodd spoke of the importance of the rule of law in foreign policy, following an endorsement of a military lawyer noted for helping end the trying of terror suspects using military tribunals Tuesday in Iowa City.

The presidential candidate from Connecticut was introduced to an Iowa City Public Library crowd of 80 by Charles Swift, a former Navy Judge Advocate General officer who served as defense counsel to suspected terrorist Salim Ahmed Hamdan in 2006. In that role, Swift argued successfully before the Supreme Court that military commissions created by the Bush Administration to try Hamdan and other Guantanamo Bay detainees ran contrary to established international and American law and were illegal.

“Under the commissions, defendants could be convicted solely on evidence obtained through torture without even being present, with no counsel,” Swift said. “The moment we started making the argument that this was a full and fair system was the moment we started losing allies in the world. I support Senator Dodd because he fought for the rule of law before it was popular.”

Dodd read from a prepared speech about foreign policy issues. He promised to work with restore faith in international institutions, not trade with nations without first stipulating labor, environmental, and healthcare standards; and to “restore the U.S. Constitution to the American people.”

“Once we endorse this culture of lawbreaking at the highest levels, it becomes contagious at all levels,” Dodd said. Article