Political Quotes

“the core concept which has guided this Nation for 200 years has been the rule of law. That is why we have a Constitution. That is why we have a judiciary. That is why we have a national legislature, to make and revise the laws which rule our conduct, one and all, no exceptions. Therefore, no one, not the mightiest in his mansion, not the lowest beggar on the street, is above, beneath, or outside the law. If a law is outmoded, has lost its utility, if it is obsolete, it is not the place of any citizen, no matter how high or how low, to decide it must no longer be obeyed. That decision rests only with the Congress or with an interpretation by the Federal courts. That is the only place that decision can rest. Yet I have in front of me a memorandum written in January of 2002 by Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel to President Bush, telling the President of the United States that the Third Geneva Convention of 1949 is obsolete, that the War Crimes Act, which we passed in 1995 making it a felony to commit a grave breach of that Convention, is inapplicable, and that as a result, prisoners captured on the battlefield can be questioned using means that would violate the Third Geneva Convention.”