On "Constitutional Crisis"

Ultimately, the Bush administration may do our nation a great favor. By governing in such a manner that its behavior has, in one instance after another, elicited the reaction that we are being pushed toward a constitutional crisis, we may be forced to actually come to terms with what that phrase actually means. The manipulators of the language and their various propaganda outlets have so abused the meaning of what language means that one symptom of this abuse is numbness. i.e., we become inured to the real impact of certain terms. They do this, of course, to attain their objectives without risking any real accountability. ("Golly," says the President, "unless you guys give your blessing to torture, ignoring international law, and the tenets of our constitution, they'll charge us as war criminals!") That is an unbelievable utterance from the head of a nation that considers itself the world's greatest democracy. Let's step back from the political debate for a while and give the term constitutional crisis a fresh look.