When President Bush expressed disappointment with the Supreme Court ruling that said neither he nor the World Court had the authority to order a Texas court to reopen a death penalty case involving a foreign national, I was a little puzzled.
I know it was Bush who sided with international law over U.S. sovereignty to set up the case. I know it was Bush who sided with a brutal murderer-rapist over state courts to set up the case. I know it was Bush who sided with Mexico and the World Court over common sense, decency and the rule of law.
But I was still a little taken aback by Bush's continued protests – even when the highest court in the land had rebuked him in a 6-3 decision.
Why was I surprised about Bush's reaction to the ruling in the case of Ernesto Medellin v. Texas that will clear the way for the execution for his part in a gang rape and murder attack on Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Peña, 15, as they walked home from a friend's home?
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Well, I couldn't help think about the first time I met George W. Bush – before he became president. This was the one and only meeting I needed to know, without a doubt, Bush was clueless – destined, if elected, to be an inept leader faithless to the principles of American independence and self-government.
It was in that meeting that someone asked the former governor of Texas what he would do if a piece of legislation clearly unconstitutional arrived on his desk at the White House.
I will never forget Bush's chilling answer to that question.
"How will I know if it's unconstitutional?" he asked.
Perhaps in the last nine years Bush has realized that every American – and certainly every elected official – has an obligation to consider the Constitution, a duty to understand it and the intellectual integrity to determine whether our laws live up to the founding document of our republic.
Back then, he apparently thought only Supreme Court justices were qualified and empowered to make that determination. Last month, when the Supreme Court in convincing fashion stood up to Bush, the World Court, Mexico and the injustice they were all trying to ram down Americans' throats, apparently Bush believed the justices decided wrongly.
It was the right decision.
And it was a little surprising given the dangerous predilection of several members of the court to consider foreign laws in their deliberations.
While we should be encouraged by the ruling, Americans should be very concerned by the way elected leaders like Bush and appointed officials like some of our Supreme Court justices actually believe there are earthly, man-made laws higher that our own Constitution.
If that is so, then Americans are no longer a people in control of their own destiny. We are no longer a people empowered to govern ourselves. We no longer have a government of the people, by the people and for the people. We no longer have a government accountable to the will of the people and the rule of law.
Obviously, that is where globalists like Bush want to take America – where foreigners can dictate to Americans how they will mete out justice, where foreigners will tell Americans how to take care of their own property and manage their own environment, where foreigners will instruct Americans on how to conduct their foreign and domestic affairs.
This is the tragedy of the times in which we live. Our founders told us that only a moral people, only an educated people, only a freedom-loving people, only a people willing to sacrifice were suited to the kind of government they gave us. I'm no longer sure the American people are capable of self-government. I'm no longer sure the American people are worthy of the opportunity for self-government.
I'm reminded of what Judge Learned Hand wrote in 1944: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."
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