Unless we start seeing a sharp reversal in conduct, I'm done with George W. Bush. This isn't about politics -- it is about the proper stewardship of the laws and the Constitution. I'm disgusted by his intervention in the Jefferson case.

President Bush personally ordered the Justice Department today to seal records seized from the Capitol Hill office of a Democratic congressman, marking a remarkable intervention by the nation's chief executive into an ongoing criminal probe of alleged corruption.

The order culminates an escalating constitutional confrontation between the Justice Department and the House of Representatives, where lawmakers have demanded that the FBI return items seized during a Saturday night raid of the office of Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.).

In a six-paragraph statement, Bush said he issued the order to give the Justice Department and angry lawmakers more time to work out an agreement on how to resolve the conflict. The materials, which have been described in court filings as two boxes of documents and copies of computer files, will be held by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, who is not involved in the Jefferson probe, Bush's statement said.

"Our government has not faced such a dilemma in more than two centuries," Bush said. "Yet after days of discussions, it is clear these differences will require more time to be worked out."

I'm willing to forgive policy differences --but this is a case of allowing a spurious claim of Congressional privilege to trump the enforcement of a duly issued search warrant in a felony case. There is nothing here to negotiate and mediate, and this decision indicates that we have a Chief Executive too weak-kneed to allow the Executive and Judicial branches to carry out their Constitutional perogatives lest it imperil his chances of legislative success --even at the cost of permitting public corruption to continue unabated. This is not to say that I will not side with George W. Bush when I believe him to be right, but rather that I will no longer extend to him the presumption that he is right, nor the level of support that I would ordinarily extend to a president of my party. I think this is that big a deal.

Is our existance as a Constitutional Republic firmly rooted in the rule of law at an end?

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