October 9, 2002
Byrd Lays It Down
Read Senator Byrd's eloquent statement about the rush to war in The LA Times.Some excerpts:
Here we are today; we have rubber spines, rubber legs, and we do not have backbones...
There is no king in the American scheme of things. There is no place for kings in our constitutional system.
We are voting on this new Bush doctrine of preventive strikes--preemptive strikes. There is nothing in this Constitution about preemptive strikes. Yet in this rag here, this resolution, we are about to vote to put the imprimatur of the Congress on that doctrine. That is what the Bush administration wants us to do. They want Congress to put its stamp of approval on that Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes.
That is a mistake. Are we going to present the face of America as the face of a bully that is ready to go out at high noon with both guns blazing or are we going to maintain the face of America as a country which believes in justice, the rule of law, freedom and liberty and the rights of all people to work out their ultimate destiny?
...if we are going to make it a blank check, let's make it a blank check right upfront, without all of these flowery fig leaves of "whereas" clauses, and simply say that the president has this power. Give it to him and we will put up a sign on the top of this Capitol: "Out of business." "Gone home." "Gone fishing."
This short piece says it all. Byrd is the man!
-- By David Cogswell