A VIOLATION OF DUTY

He just doesn't get it.

I was elected to protect the American people from harm.

As I noted before, the president takes the following oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The president's duties are defined in Article II of the Constitution. In Section 3 it says, "He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This, following a litany of duties including serving as commander In chief of the armed forces, appointing ambassadors and executive officers of the U.S., making treaties, recommending legislation, etc., and just prior to the provision for impeachment.

It is obvious that the framers envisioned the greatest harm to the American people as arising from subversion or destruction of the Constitution. For Bush to justify his illegal activity by a charge to "protect the American people from harm" is to demonstrate more up-is-down-ism. The president is not the nation's chief security officer, he is to be the guardian of our laws and Constitution. In that, he has not only fared miserably, he has deliberately, and with full knowledge, violated his Constitutional duty. He has lied to the Congress and the American people (his own party clearly believed Bill Clinton's lie about sex was an impeachable offense) to get us into a war of questionable necessity and benefit to the nation; he has broken federal law, not faithfully executed it; and he has declared his intention of continuing to do so.

And if those aren't grounds for impeachment, I don't know what is.

The Times has reported that despite a prohibition on eavesdropping on phone calls or e-mail messages that are regarded as purely domestic, the N.S.A. has accidentally intercepted what are thought to be a small number of communications in which each end was on American soil, due to technical confusion over what constitutes an "international" call.

Officials also say that the N.S.A., beyond eavesdropping on up to 500 phone numbers and e-mail addresses at any one time, has conducted much larger data-mining operations on vast volumes of communication within the United States to identify possible terror suspects. To accomplish this, the agency has reached agreements with major American telecommunications companies to gain access to some of the country's biggest "switches" carrying phone and e-mail traffic into and out of the country.

Tags: Bush, presidential oath, impeachment, Constitution