Bob Geiger:

While Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) and a panel of distinguished legal and historical experts pondered what Feingold called "the wreckage that this President will leave" on Constitutional issues, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) took umbrage primarily with the title of the hearing, "Restoring the Rule of Law."

Amazingly, that objection in yesterday's Senate hearing was based on Brownback's utter shock that anyone would think the Bush-Cheney crew has done anything to break the law in the last seven years.

"I have to take some question about the title of the hearing and the testimony offered by some of our witnesses here today is both clearly intended to imply that President Bush and certain members of the administration have undermined or even eviscerated the rule of law," said Brownback. "I have to take issue with the premise. Clearly there is a wide range of opinion as to how the president has conducted the war against terrorism over the past seven years -- I give that."

"At the end of the day the fact that these sort of disagreements exist in no way demonstrates that our nation is somehow subsisting in a lawless state. And I don't believe that it's helpful for even really productive to claim that it is."