It's not just a piece of paper.(THE LAST WORD)

According to the December 9 Capitol Hill Blue, "Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act." When GOP leaders told Bush that his "hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives," he reportedly shot back, "I don't give a g*****n, I'm the President and Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

The report also stated that when one aide in the meeting said "there is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution," Bush allegedly screamed: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a g*******d piece of paper."

Since the report did not reveal its sources. I have no proof that Bush said such a thing. However, given his utter contempt for the Constitution and for the rights of the people he supposedly serves, I have no reason to doubt that he thinks that way. Had Thomas Jefferson lived today, he might be tempted to pen the following:

"When in the course of U.S. events it becomes necessary for Americans to demand that their duly elected representatives impeach and remove from office a president, a decent respect to the opinions of their fellow citizens requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to such a course of action.

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that elected officials should not be removed from office for light and transient causes. But when a long train of unconstitutional executive branch abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to take back delegated authority from an official who is manifestly unsuitable to exercise it.

"The history of the current president of the United States of America, like many of his predecessors, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establish-merit of an absolute tyranny over these United States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid public.

"He has obstructed the administration of justice, by derailing or refusing to cooperate with the efforts of those who seek to uncover the intelligence "failures' which led to 9/11--and then he created the inauspicious Department of Homeland Security.