The chief judge of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Michael Luttig gave the Bush Administration all the power it wanted, only to have the Bush Administration turn around and bite the hand that fed it. Snakes do that.
So now, his excellency Judge Luttig has quit the bench. Got a better paying job over at Boeing Corp. They make airliners for the government, and other governments, such as China. Whoever needs an airliner goes either to Boeing or Airbus, its chief competitor.
You can read more about how the Gee-WOT (Global War on Terror) is forcing the Bush Administration to eat its young. That's what happens when the ratings go down, the war goes south, and the mid-term elections are around the corner. Even Bush's base seems to be turning on Bush. They may be punishing him for being unpopular. When he WAS popular, say on the day he stood under the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier Lincoln, the base was happy because GWB was making them look good, right, and triumphant all at once.
Now that Bush's ratings are in the toilet, some of his supporters are trying to climb out of the bowl before the Democrats pull the voting lever on the tank. The daily news reports about the insurgency, the civil war in Iraq, Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions, Abu Ghraib, and torture (the U.N. Torture Commission issued a report urging Pres. Bush to close his/our/the nation's torture camp at Guantanamo. Inmates are trying to commit suicide, conditions are so bad.
But we won't let them, preferring to force them to live in misery with no human contact outside the U.S. military guards who inflict the punishment. But that's okay because someday the prisoners, some of whom have been held for months or years, may decided someday to tell what they know, which will help us stave off another 9-11 attack. Right. Got it.
This was a country we could be proud of. A beacon of civil rights. The light of the world. Its glow is dimming, I'm afraid.