Just when you thought.....

After having deflected and deferred any formal investigation of claims of illegal intervention in the electoral process that resulted in George W. Bush “winning” an election in which he lost the popular vote, the Bush Administration now seeks to throw its weight behind a desperate effort by the GOP in Ohio to suppress voting in the upcoming election. The Supreme Court that Bush has packed with Right Wing apologist judges has declined to support this GOP strategy. So when the law fails, John Boehner turns to the person whom he believes will attempt to go above the law – George W. Bush.

It is not clear whether George W. Bush actually believes that the law does not matter. He has lived off the spoils of such political trickery and deceit so long that he might believe that he truly is above the law. Certainly the tutelage of Dick Cheney, who is the unrepentant progeny of the Nixonian philosophy of an imperial Presidency, has encouraged Bush to believe that there is no prerogative higher than Executive Privilege.

Desperate that the GOP might not only lose the Presidential election, but might take a drubbing in Senate and Congressional as well, Boehner has asked Bush to intervene in a blatantly political maneuver. There is no doubt that such a patently obvious move to seek political interference in the election would not be even considered unless there was a fear that a fair contest would not go their way. So the resort to extralegal maneuvers is the option that the GOP has taken. It is not clear whether the Congress has the spine to step in to address this tawdry spectacle. The viability of the Constitution is at risk, and that is not hyperbole. Historically, the US population has felt comfortable criticizing Latin American and other “Third World” nations for their tendency to allow corrupt politicians to manipulate elections and defraud the public out of free and fair elections. The US is in serious danger of stooping to that same level that previously would have been unthinkable. Just when you thought it could not get any worse....