Dear George,
O! What a helioconic day! What a day for dance! For celebration! What a day to blow the strumpets! For on this day the ivy wreath of absolute power came to rest upon your brow, reducing the Senate to a gaggle of impotent old men.
The cupbearer who performed the ceremony was a humble man from the heartland, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
This was a seismic shift that undercut forever the quaint notion that we are a nation of laws and not a nation of men. Yet it was no more than a blurb buried in the back of the newpaper and a bare thirty-second spot on CNN.
This is what happened: The good senator announced that his committee would not investigate your unlawful eavesdropping operation because such an investigation would be “detrimental to this highly classified program.”
George! Look at what is happening here. You broke the fucking law! That’s the long and the short of it. The Senate should be impeaching you, but, instead, they’re giving you a free pass. They are telling you that a crime is beyond the pale of investigation if it is top secret enough. By conflating criminal activity and national security, Roberts negated both congressional and judicial oversight. The amazing thing is that Roberts staged a bloodless coup, and nobody noticed!
Savor the potential:
· Is the UN bugging you about torturing prisoners at Gitmo? Classify the whole operation.
· Have billions gone missing from FEMA’s Katrina relief effort? Classify the books.
· Are prosecutors climbing all over DeLay and Abramoff? Classify them both! Tell the public that the whole thing was a top-secret funding operation for your Endless War of the Empty Policy.
Granted, Roberts made some noise about judicial oversight. However, he forgets that such oversight would be “detrimental to this highly classified program.” Besides, he glides over the fact that you broke the law.
But, since when has the law ever gotten in the way of the pursuit of absolute power. The law is whatever absolute power does.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
8:58:40 PM 
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