Our Republic Dies Not with a Bang But with a Yawn

Keith Olbermann has - with too little notice - done yeoman's work letting us know just how horrible the Military Commission's Act really is. His previous article laid out how all but one of the ten articles of the Bill of Rights are rendered obsolete by the Act. His latest is an interview with Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University.

A teaser, but go read the whole thing:

OLBERMANN: Does this mean that under this law, ultimately the only thing keeping you, I, or the viewer out of Gitmo is the sanity and honesty of the president of the United States?

TURLEY: It does. And it’s a huge sea change for our democracy. The framers created a system where we did not have to rely on the good graces or good mood of the president. In fact, Madison said that he created a system essentially to be run by devils, where they could not do harm, because we didn’t rely on their good motivations.

Now we must. And people have no idea how significant this is. What, really, a time of shame this is for the American system. What the Congress did and what the president signed today essentially revokes over 200 years of American principles and values.

I don't know about any of you, but I'm none to sanguine as to the "sanity and honesty" of Bush. As bad as they are, in comparison, Foleygate doesn't matter, Ney doesn't matter, Abramoff is a piker, honestly Iraq isn't as important as this story.

But as Olbermann says, the raping of our Constitution has been greeted with a national yawn.