He's No Different

by Steve

It's as if the Bush administration overreach escaped the notice of Barack Obama, and the libertarian and progressive outrage during the previous administration never happened.

The Supreme Court intervened again Monday in a lawsuit against a former George W. Bush administration official, agreeing to decide whether former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft is entirely shielded from claims that he misused the law to arrest terrorism suspects under false pretenses.

Obama administration lawyers appealed on Ashcroft's behalf and asserted that it would "severely damage law enforcement" if the nation's top law enforcement official could be held liable for abusing his authority.

With his selection of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court rather than the more qualified Diane Wood, Obama has ensured that the Reagan-Bush majority on the court will enshrine the concept of unchecked executive power across the land. Why?

The justices announced they would hear the case of Ashcroft vs. Kidd early next year and decide whether the doctrine of prosecutorial immunity required that the suit be dismissed. Justice Elena Kagan is staying out of the case because of her involvement in it as a top Justice Department official.

And don't kid yourself: the same conservative "justices" who held a Democratic president accountable while in office for things he did before taking office will have no hesitation in ruling that GOP executive branch members are immune from accountability for official actions forever, regardless of whether those actions shred the Bill of Rights. That's just GOP judicial activism at work.