AG defends Bush, disses judiciary

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants federal judges to mind their place and stay out of Georgie's business. He says they "should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime."

Is is joking? What judgements? The one when he declared he was the Great Decider or the one where he has been insisting on staying the course with failed policies? But Gonzales doesn't stop there.

He said the Constitution makes the president commander in chief and the Supreme Court has long recognized the president's pre-eminent role in foreign affairs. "The Constitution, by contrast, provides the courts with relatively few tools to superintend military and foreign policy decisions, especially during wartime," the attorney general told a conference on the judiciary at Georgetown University Law Center.

"Respectfully, when courts issue decisions that overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent, they cannot — and should not — be shielded from criticism," Gonzales said. "A proper sense of judicial humility requires judges to keep in mind the institutional limitations of the judiciary and the duties expressly assigned by the Constitution to the more politically accountable branches."

What a crock. The only one overturning long term precedents is Bush and we're not in a war, we're in a failed occupation. It's to reframe the discussion and eliminate the idea there's an actual war on terror. All we've got is a president cast adrift in a sea of terrorism, trying to paddle against the current with no oars.