In case you doubt that we are subjects of an imperial presidency, a recently released Justice Department memo has confirmed it.

The Washington Post recently reported on the contents of a 2003 memo sent from a deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel to the Pentagon's general counsel. The 81-page memo, written by John Yoo, recited explicit executive powers that deemed the president unaccountable to anyone.

It gave the loyal Bushies a flimsy legal shield from prosecution for actions taken in the war on terror. We have Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Patrick Leahy to thank for urging the government to declassify the memo so that the public could know what this administration has been up to.

Since Sept. 11, George W. Bush's apparatchiks have helped him further questionable policies through the misinterpretation of laws, nullification of the Bill of Rights and unwarranted grants of executive privilege.

What these Bushofascists have done in the so-called terror war has been horrifying in scope and reckless in its disregard for military codes of conduct, civil laws and order.

It's criminal how the administration used extraordinary renditions, warrantless searches and seizures, waterboarding, prolonged detainment and other methods to circumvent domestic and international laws. Its use of private telecom firms for state-sponsored terror against law-abiding citizens should have been met with criminal charges, not pleas to lawmakers for immunity from prosecution.

The list of wrongdoing seemed endless even before the release of the 2003 memo pointed to a greater role by the Justice Department in this anti-American extrajudicial enterprise known as the war on terror.

Yoo's memo claimed the Defense Department need not abide by the Geneva Conventions or other international laws or treaties concerning human rights or military conduct. That must've been music to Donald Rumsfeld's ears.

Interrogators could look upon torture as a legally acceptable self-defense, the memo suggested.

"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," wrote Yoo.

In other words, the ends justify the means because a government lawyer — not the Supreme Court — said so.

Yoo, currently a law professor in California, claimed that the president has "constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack." Therefore, what interrogators do on behalf of their commander in chief would be legal.

Except it's not.

One can argue that the incurious Bush was ill-served by advisers such as Yoo. But the list of bad advisers has included John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Bremer et al. These people who say they "serve at the pleasure of the president" have done so at the expense of we the people.

This is a democracy, not a monarchy, and no lawyer's memo can change that.

The disregard and disdain the executive branch has for the people was obvious when Dick Cheney recently responded to a reporter's question about waning support for the war with a dismissive, "So?"

The "war president" and "The Decider" can claim deniability for what's happened, but his claims aren't plausible. If President Bush wants credit for this war's successes, he also must accept responsibility for its failures, such as the countless citizens mistakenly put on terror watch lists who can't clear their names. Do we still have the Fourth and Fifth amendments?

The Yoo memo sits on a mountain of evidence of a great national betrayal, one worthy of impeachment for its intent to commit high crimes and misdemeanors against the American people.

This administration has found no shortage of little men and women in high places willing to betray their country and what it stands for just to score political capital and a tenuous place in history.

Some of them have left paper trails, should anyone besides Leahy and Levin dare to compel this lawless administration to expose them.

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (lokeman@kcstar.com) is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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