I AM THE LAW!!!!!!!!

During a December 18 public discussion of President Bush's publicly-asserted right to eavesdrop on Americans' communications without judicial oversight, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean called Bush "the first president to admit to an impeachable offense."  Dean isn't the only one who thinks so:

"I think if we're going to be intellectually honest here, this really is the kind of thing that Alexander Hamilton was referring to when impeachment was discussed." - Norman Ornstein, the American Enterprise Institute, on NPR's Diane Rehm Show, December 19, 2005.

"Looking at this controversy objectively, you inevitably end up with a question of impeachment." - Professor Jonathan Turley, George Washington University School of Law, in this week's Salon.

"President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law.  He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms." - Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein, writing in the Washington Times, December 20, 2005. 

"This president has admitted committing the crime. He just claims he's above the law...  So the issue is: Is the president above the law? ...  [T]hen we need not argue over the PATRIOT Act. We do not need the PATRIOT Act, because the president can do anything he wants in time of war. He can ignore all the criminal laws of the United States, including the laws against indefinite detention and against torture. I don't think we want to go down that road."- Professor Chris Pyle, Mount Holyoke College, in this week's Salon.