"Richard Milhous Bush"

That's what Andrew Sullivan's calling the president, with solid justification, after this CIA evidence-destroying scandal. This is breathtaking stuff. Here's the speech given today by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, about the claims of executive power asserted by Bush, and okayed by the Justice Dept's Office of Legal Counsel, according to the senator, who has seen them:

For years under the Bush Administration, the Office of Legal Counsel within the Department of Justice has issued highly classified secret legal opinions related to surveillance. This is an administration that hates answering to an American court, that wants to grade its own papers, and OLC is the inside place the administration goes to get legal support for its spying program. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I was given access to those opinions, and spent hours poring over them. Sitting in that secure room, as a lawyer, as a former U.S. Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island’s Governor, and State Attorney General, I was increasingly dismayed and amazed as I read on. To give you an example of what I read, I have gotten three legal propositions from these OLC opinions declassified. Here they are, as accurately as my note taking could reproduce them from the classified documents. Listen for yourself. I will read all three, and then discuss each one. 1. An executive order cannot limit a President. There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it.

2. The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II.

3. The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations.

I want these opinions published. I want to see if Sen. Whitehouse is giving an accurate account. If he is, I'm sorry, but this is -- what's the word? -- tyrannical.

As far as the CIA thing goes, it looks like obstruction of justice, at least. Here's conservative blogger Ed Morrissey's take:

Frankly, the timing stinks. The tapes sat unmolested in a vault for at least two years without the CIA worrying about the potential damage from a leak. The Inspector General had long since concluded that the interrogations did not break the law. However, as soon as Congress began debating the specific interrogation technique that the tapes depicted, someone decided that they represented a danger to the agents. It looks a lot more like destroying evidence than tightening security.

James Joyner, also a conservative, says:

There were tapes. The tapes were subpoenaed, their existence was denied, and they were subsequently destroyed. ... People have gone to jail for obstruction of justice for actions much, much less brazen than this.

Hate to admit it, but Teddy K. is right:

The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said.

“But that excuse won’t wash,” Senator Kennedy said today. “Does the director believe the C.I.A.’s buildings are not secure? Would it be beyond the agency’s technical expertise to preserve the tapes while hiding the identity of its employees? Does the director believe that the C.I.A.’s employees cannot be trusted not to leak materials that might harm the agency?

“Or does he know that the interrogation techniques are so abhorrent that they could not remain unknown much longer?”

Is this really our country? Where our secret agents torture people, lie to lawmakers about it, and destroy the evidence of their (potential) crime? Where are the Republicans on this?

Richard Milhous Bush. You got that right, Sully.