Bush takes one more step toward outright fascism.

This is not a very accurate reading of history. Yes there were many excesses, most notably the "Palmer Raids". But there was not the comprehensive use of government agencies to collect data and spy on ordinary citizens. There is plenty that is new. We have agencies with legal, organizational and technical intelligence capabilities, including Homeland Security, the FBI, the NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the CIA, that didn't exist in 1918. Anything available to Palmer seems pathetic by comparison. Also different is the level of direct White House involvement today. Even the Attorney General has taken orders directly from Bush to deny security clearances to investigators, thus preventing an investigation of possible executive excesses. That is new. The only thing approaching it in scope came not in the Wilson administration, but when Nixon ordered his AG Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Prosecutor. Wilson was a piker compared to Bush when it comes to executive meddling in the privacy of ordinary citizens.

Unless I am mistaken, the OP is about Bush, not Clinton. It seems quite off topic to be pursuing an extended discussion back and forth about Clinton and his AG. Am I wrong?

WWI was a declared war. If the Palmer Raids had anything to do with that (which I don't actually think they did - I think it was more about perceived threats from anarchists and socialists) one could certainly make the case that the CIC provisions would be more applicable than for Iraq. However, I think your point is quite off the point anyway as WWI was not the impetus for the Palmer Raids. Not sure what Mexico and Russia have to do with rounding up U.S. citizens either. You are all over the place here.I was arguing that the Bush tactics have gone far beyond rounding up individual citizens. He literally has set up the infrastructure to be able to spy on every person in the country. The fact that he says he hasn't/won't do that - well when has any such infrastructure NOT eventually been used - either accidentially or on purpose? Whether or not Bush himself is a fascist - I don't happen to think he is - he has no understanding of the potential harm that could result from actions he has taken to advance the power of the executive over all other branches and over all citizens, all with the compliance of a rubber stamp Congress and quiescent courts.Bush authorized nothing new? The Patriot Act is not new? Widespread circumvention of the FISA is not new? Gitmo as a detention center for enemy combatents is not new? Setting aside the Geneva Conventions and use of coercive interrogation is not new? Then why did the Bush administration try to change the Army Field Manual to authorize those techniques? Sure some of these things may have occured before, but Bush is the first president to officially authorize them on a wide scale.

I think you are way off topic so I will not respond here.
Why don't you start a thread on Clinton if you want to talk about Clinton?Edited by deerbreh, : No reason given.