The Oath

During her testimony today in front of Congress, Sara Taylor, former White House Political Director, said something that I found both frightening and quite telling. At one point in her testimony she stated that, “I took an oath and I take that oath to the President very seriously”. Senator Patrick Leahy immediately corrected her, pointing out that the oath she had sworn was to the Constitution, not to the President. Was this a harmless misstatement on Ms. Taylor’s part? Neocons will surely argue that it was, but while it was certainly a misstatement, I believe that rather than a harmless faux pas it was a chilling glimpse into the mindset of those who have served and those who continue to serve in the Bush administration.

It doesn’t take a very close examination of our current Presidential administration to see the obvious, that it’s minion work and act under the guise that an oath to uphold our Constitution is synonymous with an oath to uphold the President They seem to believe that no matter what happens their first responsibility, whether as government employees or private citizens, is to serve the will of President Bush, to loyally follow him and do his bidding, even if it’s illegal or diametrically opposed to the Constitution. This is a patently false and dangerous misconstruction of duty. In America, as opposed to say Nazi Germany, our government employees, do not and can not swear allegiance to any one man, or the office he/she may hold. This is one of the fundamental differences between a democracy and a dictatorship. When people start confusing the basic tenets that make this a democracy with those that form a dictatorship that is, to put it mildly, some scary shit!

The people who support President Bush, Dick Cheney and company in their unprecedented grab for overwhelming executive branch power, either do not understand or do not care the risk and inherent danger they are exposing our country to. Neocons will tell you that liberals are paranoid and that it’s no big deal, but they couldn’t be more wrong. By thinking and acting as if the President and the executive branch is the sole end all and be all of this nation, they are complicit in severely damaging the very fiber of our democracy and that is a very big deal indeed.