From Iraq to Katrina to Iraq again--and every other issue in between--the Bush Presidency has been marred by a series of shameful, incompetent, and dangerous policy decisions. If his last veto on the Iraqi spending bill weren't enough, Bush is ensuring to secure his legacy as a failed presidency.
As noted in this earlier post, almost as soon as the House overwhelmingly passed the Local Law Enforcement and Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the White House issued a statement of intent to veto the bill!
Why would this Administration oppose a law that...
Amends the federal criminal code to prohibit willfully causing bodily injury to any person because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of such person.
Amends the Hate Crimes Statistics Act to expand data collection and reporting requirements under such Act to include: (1) crimes manifesting prejudice based on gender and gender identity; and (2) hate crimes committed by and against juveniles.
Among the most egregious "reasons" the White House made in regards to their veto threat
1. The bill would "leave out other classes (such as the elderly, members of the military, police officers, and victims of prior crimes"
This is a blatantly disingenuous argument, as there are laws that were enacted for these very groups:
Elderly:Um... isn't there an entire practice of law that deals with laws addressing the Elderly? Hmm, I think it's called ELDER LAW!!! I guess it's because the bill expressly mentions juveniles and the White House felt the elderly were being unfairly excluded--there oughtta be a law! (oh yeah, that's right... this is it!)
Members of Military Family: The President signed the military funeral protest ban that would prohibit demonstrations during military ceremonies, in essence protecting family members from hostile demonstrators.
Oh yeah, in case you think its in esponse to anti-war war groups... this was actually in direct response to the homophobic, hateful demonstrations of Fred Phelps
who celebrated the deaths of American soldiers as God's punishment for society that "tolerates" homosexuality; beleive it or not, that is actually a sanitized version of what he actually says! I guess the President does believe in enacting laws that punishes hate.
Police Officers: There are so many laws, statutes, and legislation that provides for harsher sentencing that an exhaustive list here would be impractical, your research can begin with "Assualt on a Police Officer" and move forward from there
So if these groups are covered by other laws, then why would this Administration deny passing a federal law that would more explicitly consider racial, gender, and orientation?
Well, that brings me to their second point
2. State and local criminal laws already provide criminal penalties for the violence addressed by the new Federal crime defined in section 7 of H.R. 1592
Does President Bush actually expect us to forget that he was once Governor of Texas? Does this Administration have the audacity to believe that the public would not be able to access his public records and history with hate crime bills?
For those who don't remember then-Gov. Bush vetoed a hate crime bill named after James Byrd, who suffered a horrendous lynching-murder in 1998. He used the same set of excuses he is using now! In fact, he answered with glee that Texas doesn't need to have a hate crimes bill because all three perpetrators would be put to death (even though in actuality only two were).
In fact, then Gov. Bush was the only person in the way of the bill's enactment--as evidenced by the fact Gov. Rick Perry later signed it into law in 2001!
This is one of the most tragic displays of disgustful, uncompassionate political pandering I've seen from this Administration (in at least the past 24 hours). I would say "shame on them"--but that does not express the depth of disgrace this Administration continues to bring to the Office of the Presidency.