Are we a republic?

The question is whether Dubai World Port, now proud owner of the British P&O company, should be allowed to run six major ports in the USA. Accusations of corporate racial profiling and anti-Arab bias are buzzing around the coffee tables and talk shows this Sunday. Probably Senator Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan, did cut to the chase: he mentioned that a law demands a Congressional security investigation if a deal of the transnational kind raises questions of national security. The Republican-run administration apparently has circumvented or short-circuited or avoided or omitted or forgotten -whichever word best fits your mind set- such scrutiny.
To me this fits a consistent pattern of Bush administration’s hubris. They consider themselves to be competent and intelligent and seasoned and knowledgeable individuals that do not need to take into account, or God-forbid, be second-guessed by those elected officials in Congress whose job it is to oversee, or second-guess whatever the Administration (the Executive Branch) is doing.
We have heard, or should have, Justice Alito and Roberts, carefully avoiding to say that, although “the President is not above the law”, the law can be read in such ways as to exempt the President from following it. I advise you to read Ron Dworkin’s view in the February 23rd New York Review of Books on the question.

It is therefore very consistent that this administration acts on the assumption that, because George W. Bush was elected in November 2004 for another four years, the people that have been appointed by him are covered by the belief that he can do whatever he wants, without having to answer to Congress or to the press or to anybody. This attitude is the prevalent tone on the invasion of Iraq, on the conduct of the war there, on the definition of “enemy combatants”, on the use of torture during interrogation, on the infringement of the rights of privacy of American citizens, and even on the obligation of unelected officials to report truthfully about their actions to Congress.
This administration proudly carries the badge of “business-like”, although most its upper command structure comes from the ranks of the civil service. Business thinking, the American way, demands tunnel-vision: whatever it takes to get what I want, don’t bother me with the details, my mind is made-up. Is this the way this Republic was conceived? I think not.
I grew up in a country ruled for forty years by General Franco who claimed to be responsible for his actions only “to God and to History”. Here we are better off: we only have to watch this for another two and a half years.