By Jove!

I thought this was an interesting post John Hummel made of recent events about Bush and surveillance. You can find the digg post here.

Co-Worker: So, it was all right if Bush allowed wire taps, because he was only doing it to bad people!

Me: Interesting. You know, the other day, my daughter got in trouble for eating a piece of candy.

Co-Worker: OK. So what does that have to do with anything?

Me: Well, you see, she knows that after dinner, as long as she asks me, she'll be allowed a piece of candy for dessert. She knows that if she brings me the candy, I'll still probably tell her OK. All I ask is that she come ask me, and I'll tell her it's acceptable to have the candy. The other night, she didn't ask - she took a piece and ate it, and now she gets no candy for the next few days.

Co-worker: And?

Me: It's the same thing. Bush could have asked for permission to do the wire taps. It would have cost him nothing, it wouldn't have gotten him into trouble, and it would take hardly any effort since he could even do it after he started. But he couldn't even be bothered to follow the law. Couldn't be bothered to say "Hey, this is what I'm doing" to a third party just to make sure. Instead, he found it easier to keep it hidden from everything - including the people he swore he would serve when he swore an oath to the Constitution. He got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. I didn't care that my daughter ate the candy - I cared the didn't respect me enough to ask first. I didn't care that Bush had people listening in to phone conversations - I cared he didn't respect us enough to ask first. Especially when the people he would have asked would have said "Yes."

Me: And if I can trust him with the little things - like getting a warrant even when he can wait until 3 days after he starts to get one, that a warrant for wiretaps has been denied only 4 times since 1976 so he's got no fear of someone saying "no" (far less than my daughter has than I will say "no" to candy) - if he can't even follow the law on such a simple and direct thing, how can I trust him to follow the law when it's hard? Like Dumbledore said: You have to choose between what is easy, and what is right. He choose the easy. I can no longer trust him with the right.