Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights
by Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose
If you don't know Molly Ivins, you missed one of the great political writers of all time. She came to my attention when I read a review of her collected articles entitled, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" Molly Ivins once wrote about Texas politics, and with great gusto about the Texas legislature. After writing in the Dallas Times Herald about one local politician, "if his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water him twice a day," a number of humorless readers canceled their subscriptions. To which the Times Herald put up billboards all around Dallas saying, "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" Yes, she could.
She had a wonderful wit and was fearless, lived life as I imagine a Texan would. She had a great time mocking the idiots in the Texas legislature, so it was only natural that she would be the one to expose George W. Bush in all his ignorance and privilege. She, along with Lou Dubose, wrote books about the Bush years entitled Shrub (his years as governor and campaign for president) and Bushwacked (the presidency). Over the years, Molly maintained her sense of humor, but writing about the serious damage that was being done to our country became more dark and pronounced.
In 2007, Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose published her last book, Bill of Wrongs, while Molly was dying of cancer. In the acknowledgements, Dubose has the sad privilege of thanking her for her contributions to exposing injustices and attacks on our democracy throughout her life. This book was her last attempt to warn us that our rights were under attack. Molly begins the book talking about how she is less amused and more alarmed by the transgressions of the Bush administration. For someone who lived her life laughing past the graveyard, this was something to take seriously.
When I hear people talk wistfully of the Dubya years, I find myself missing Molly more than ever. We need her to give us a good shake, to remind us that without Bush, we would not have become so desensitized to losing our rights. It was a slippery slope indeed, and on so many fronts. As we talk about children in cages, we are not talking about the war on Muslims. We try to fight for women, DACA children, African Americans, LGBTQ, and for gods' sake the New York Times and the Capital Gazette, but can't seem to keep up with the hatred being spewed and violations that are being made on each of us daily, by the twitter president and his partners in crime, the US Congress and the Supreme Court.
We keep reminding ourselves that this is not normal. Yet after only 24 hours of the media talking about how the Democrats were going to fight Mitch McConnell's push to get another radical right wing supreme court justice on the bench, last night I heard a bunch of talking heads going through Trump's list of potential nominees, assessing them as though this was going to be a normal process. More air time validating the unconstitutional consolidation of the three once independent branches of our government.
So, let me give you a quick run-through of Molly's reporting of the plundering of the Constitution that went on during the Bush years.
Before Bush, we could protest in view of the president. During the Bush years, people began to get arrested at rallies for, one example, wearing a t-shirt that read:
This arrest, mind you, wasn't even at a rally; it was during an official presidential visit. Celebrating the 4th of July. As he gave a speech about "free thought, free expression." Those were the days, when we had a president that really knew how to double-talk, with sincerity.
Molly features South Carolina's own Brett Bursey in his fight for the right to protest, as Bush's own deplorables worked to create the "free speech zones" that now typically make certain that our free speech is hidden from view.
Bill of Wrongs was published in 2007, after years of dizzying changes brought about by the shock of 9/11. After years of tyrants like Dick Cheney turning our fears into frenzy. Terrifyingly, the PATRIOT Act that was pushed through Congress in 2003 is now just a fact of life, as we struggle with Russian interference and a president that welcomes it. I was surprised to recall that the chillingly acronymed ICE -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- was only imagined and implemented in 2003. As an arm of the creepily named "Department of Homeland Security," which itself was invented in 2002. All just part of the government these days. (Since the horrifying past weeks of children in cages, separated from their families, there has been a growing call for the end to ICE. Infuriatingly, our own Congressional Democrats are walking it back, pleading for moderation. What can I say?)
During the Bush years, it wasn't just political appointees that were chosen for their loyalty and ideology. I recall some news about screening and litmus tests for judicial appointments, and a nation horrified. Unlike the current stable genius who is raiding our democracy, Bush was shrewd enough to deny what he was doing; he knew he couldn't get away with such a flagrant abuse of power. These days, the orange haired tyrant wants us all to know he is denying us our rights as he does it. A short year or so ago we were appalled that he had demanded loyalty from his FBI Director; today we don't even blink at the thought of justice department toadies. That slippery slope gets steeper and ever more slippery. And lest we give him too much credit, our republican Congress has been excluding its elected Democratic representatives from lawmaking since our first black president was elected. Trump has no new bad ideas, he just flaunts the old ones.
Way back in the aughts, we had journalists imprisoned for not giving up their sources. We had unchecked government surveillance of American citizens. There were Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, black sites, torture memos; that was when the right wingnut John Ashcroft and James Comey got to be heroes, when torture became "enhanced interrogation techniques," and they reached the limit of what they could tolerate.
We talk fondly about Bush defending Muslims after 9/11, but while he was saying the right things, the FBI was surveilling and falsely arresting people who happened to be Muslim; Ivins and Dubose describe Attorney Brandon Mayfield's arrest for the Madrid train bombings. Sure he was Muslim... And did you hear that?
But he was Muslim, but they were protesting, but she was crossing the border, but he looked dangerous...
Which brings up the subject of religious freedom. It was probably Karl Rove who decided that Dubya should call himself a "compassionate conservative." And the Bush administration happily gave over federal funds to Christian organizations to do the work of government. We mostly didn't worry about it too much. It was hard to see what was wrong with doing good. Unless you are gay and can only appeal for help from a fundamentalist Christian group. Or you are a young woman who needs contraceptive care (or an abortion, which our government has decided not to pay for decades ago, for religious reasons).
During the Bush years, our librarians fought for our right to privacy. Many of them. I worked at a library where the branch manager happily gave up the internet sign-up list because a rape suspect said he was at the library on the computer during the time of the assault. She was tickled that she could be part of solving the crime. We had patrons who were unhappy that we didn't keep records of what they had read (so they wouldn't have to...).
I hate to say this, but most of us these days don't understand what could happen if: our library records, computer records, phone records become available. We have allowed businesses from Facebook to AT&T to credit card companies to have access to our personal data. It takes seconds online to apply for and receive a credit card. Because they have all our information.
The despot-in-chief wanted a national database of our voter registration records, and most of us couldn't understand what the big fuss was about. Which left our governors and state attorneys general on their own, fighting the fight for our right to a protected secret ballot.
Forget the slippery slope. We went over the cliff when we allowed ourselves to be frightened and intimidated into The PATRIOT Act. And if I were more knowledgeable about history, I could go back farther. We have been complacent about our rights. We have a government TODAY -- all three branches -- that are complicit in dismantling the Bill of Rights.
Oh, my, I had intended to write a summary of Molly's book, highlighting each area that our rights were violated during the Bush years... but I couldn't help but go into a rant. So many outrages, so many injustices, so many egregious violations of our civil rights.
And it all started with George W. Bush. Please take the time to read the book. Ivins and Dubose have done an excellent job, in just 200 pages, of describing the harm that began with Bush and his own basket of deplorables, many of whom have stuck around and crawled out from under their rocks now that Trump has freed up the swamp for his own personal use.
Our wonderful library still has copies that survived the Henderson Purge (which began around the end of the Bush era). And because libraries have only so much space, I urge you to check it out, because: use it or lose it.
Bill of Wrongs is so very relevant and important today. But go back farther into the beginnings of the political life of George W. Bush. We need to be clear that without him we would not be tolerating Trump. As Will Ferrell said in his reprise of Dubya, "I was really bad. Like historically not good."
Molly Ivins is the journalist that painted the picture of what harm Dubya could do, with a laugh and then with alarm. If only we had listened. If only she were here now, to help us through these dark days.
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