Congress mandates a yearly report from the State Department cataloguing and commenting on the international terrorist events of the preceding year. Over and over, we have seen how the amount of terrorism being perpetrated in the world is driven ever higher, with new records for violence seemingly every year. Needless to say, this report is always a political hot-potato, making headlines by putting the lie to Bush's strategy in the War on Terror, and our newest pending report promises the same. Given the increasingly one-sided political debate on Iraq and the current imbroglio over funding, this report couldn't have come at a worse time for the Bush White House. Surprise, surprise! To solve their political problem, the Bush Administration considered breaking the law:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition, due to the extreme political sensitivities, several officials said. But ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or about the congressionally mandated deadline of Tuesday, the officials said.
Needless to say, you cannot ignore the will of Congress because it would be politically inconvenient to obey. At least, that used to be the case before the Bush Administration's theory of lawlessness took hold.
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