Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

After the thing, therefore because of the thing.

The fly was crushed mid-flight by encountering a moving object. Therefore, the moving object killed the fly. Score one for flyswatters.

"Mr. X" hates us, and says so in a letter. An hour after receiving and reading the letter, "Us" has a car accident. Therefore, the car accident was caused by Mr. X. At the very least, Us dislikes "X" a lot. Did "X" cause the brakes to fail? Possibly. The other car to sideswipe the very car Us was riding in? Maybe. The red light to stop working in a power outage. Unlikely.

But life, real life, is more complicated.

For example, in one of the most complicated jobs in the nation, the thought that because President Nixon didn't assert Executive Privilege, and allowed John Dean (then White House Counsel) to testify, President Nixon was forced to resign or be impeached.

In truth, it wasn't Mr. Dean at all, as his testimony was only a vehicle by which the truth was going to come out. Truth has that habit. It does come out. Messy, nasty, cathartic truth. It gets loose and we are the better for it.

President Nixon couldn't have kept the truth in, any more than King Knut could have stopped the tide. Truth is a tide, and not one influenced by the phase of the moon. Executive privilege is not the tool. Executive honesty however is the tool that will save the Republic. Executive honesty is what is required to keep the Constitution.

Always it does come back to those fine Top Ten that the Right Wing spout off about daily. The "Thou shalt nots..." In order to fulfill the oath of office which is not to the People, but to the Constitution, the honor of the office requires an honest assessment of the situation. And it requires honesty to Congress, not contempt of it.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It is not the speaking in public by John Dean, his testimony to Congress, that brought down President Nixon. It was Nixon himself. It was arrogance in possession of power that caused Nixon's White House to implode. The Constitution won. The People, only through the words of Mr. Dean, and Mr. Butterfield, and Mr. Cox, and ...

All of them, together brought down that which President Nixon had done to the Constitution. Sure, there was lying, obfuscation, dirty tricks, the birth of the "Unitary Executive" (a concept anathema to the Founders), denials and more. But it was a bridge too far to cross, a scintilla that when push met shove, even President Nixon could not and would not cross the line of breaking the Constitution.

Would we had even one tenth of the honor of those days back again. Break the armed services, break treaties, violate the Bill of Rights, turn the nation inside out in pursuit of wars of choice, all are bad in their own right. But to place witnesses before the Judiciary Committee and require them to assert an oath that is the least important oath int he nation, after those same persons have taken the highest and most demanding oath a citizen can make, is more than hubris. It is insanity.

All government officers take an oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution... from all enemies foreign and domestic". That oath requires that the Constitution, and the laws pertaining thereto, be obeyed with all the honest, loyalty, vigor, intellect, energy and love a citizen can muster. Oaths to a person pale in comparison. In fact, oaths to a person, or an office, are not contemplated by the Constitution as being superior to the oath to the Constitution.

Yet that is where we are. A mistaken belief that Executive Privilege, which can stall proceedings in Congress, (im)properly exercised will save the President where the Constitution demands disclosure and treatment of all branches of government as coequal, without a 'king' at the top of one of them, is what has gotten us here. Our Constitution cannot serve us, nor we it, in secrecy or in mendacity.

John Dean's testimony didn't bring down Nixon. If Attorney general Gonzales were to tell the truth, make his 'stories' agree with truth, and even the statements he made earlier, the Presidency will stand. And the Presidency will stand stronger for it.

President Nixon knew this, and so stopped short of obstruction of Congress, inherent contempt of Congress committed by his underlings, and contempt of the American People. President Nixon understood that contempt for the truth would break the nation, would forever break the Constitution.

The cause of Nixon's downfall was never the testimony, and never shall be for any President. The downfall that crying to occur today is simple and must go forward if the Constitution will stand as the highest law of the land. It is the acts for which the Administration desires darkness and secrecy that must be brought into the open, and measures taken to prevent such actions in future. It is the hoping against hope that honest discovery will never occur that will bring down President Bush. Either it shall happen through impeachment, resignation, or in the history books. It is too late to fix it.

King Knut could not stop the tide, nor did he intend to. He took the step to attempt stopping of the tides to show that even a King must be humble before forces that are larger than the Reg. For Knut, the tides were humbling. For us the tide of truth shall save us and our nation.

The time to fix the position of this President Bush on the good side of history was before the wiretaps, before the violations of the Fourth Amendment, before the NSA programme. That time is past, for the evil has been done. Now all that remains is for a shred of honor to emerge and for this President to realize that his oath, to the Constitution demands allowing the truth to come out. Save the Constitution and save the Nation.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. After the lies, the lawbreaking, the unravelling of the Constitutional fabric of the Republic, must come the truth. It is bigger than all of us. Arriving in time, it just might save us. Under our Constitution, the truth shall keep us free.

Now that is an outcome we can thrive with. After the lying, because of the lying, the Constitution is shredded, and all of us, this great Republic, with it.

After the truth, therefore because of the truth, the Republic shall stand.

After the truth, therefore because of the truth, the Constitution shall be restored.