Centerblue.org

(Don’t read what follows if you don’t want a spoiler.)

The story reverberating today through the comic book community and elsewhere is that Marvel has killed off its iconic hero Captain America as part of a larger story arc called “Civil War” that pits various heroes against each other.

Captain America arose in 1941 as the US entered World War II. He became an obvious symbol of American strength and values as he helped defeat the Axis and later the Communists. After that he didn’t do much until recently. A hero’s mistake caused a 9/11-type of tragedy, leading the government to enact a superhero registration program. Captain America resisted the new law, but subsequently surrendered to police and was to stand trial. While climbing the courthouse steps on his way to trial he was struck down and shot dead by a sniper.

The allegorical overtones of this story are obvious and tragic. After 9/11 we have been subjected to everything from the Patriot Act, to warrantless surveillance and wiretapping, to military tribunals, to the suspension of habeas corpus, to a war based on lies, to the torture and raping of prisoners and innocent civilians alike in Iraq. America’s values of freedom, privacy, democracy, civil and human rights, and leadership have been sacrificed on the stair steps of a perverted system of justice that refuses to hold its perpetrators accountable.

It is perfectly fitting, then, that the heroic symbol of the American Way is struck down in cold blood on the very stair steps of his fate. Being a comic book story, it is always possible that a hero can be brought back from the dead. Unfortunately, bringing back the America of yore will not be nearly so easy.

The snipping sounds of the political scissors being applied to Bush’s testicles are getting louder. Wisely deciding to pick his battles more carefully in the wake of the Congressional trouncing the GOP received last month, Bush has decreed that his wireless surveillance program will now be submitted to the jurisdiction of the FISA court for review, instead of petulantly insisting he can order such illegal activities under the authority of the Constitution’s Article II.

The Neocon Right is pissed:

Is there no principle subject to negotiation? Is there no course subject to reversal? For the Bush administration to argue for years that this program, as operated, was critical to our national security and fell within the president’s Constitutional authority, to then turnaround and surrender presidential authority this way is disgraceful. The administration is repudiating all the arguments it has made in testimony, legal briefs, and public statements. This goes to the heart of the White House’s credibility. How can it cast away such a fundamental position of principle and law like this? –Mark Levin, National Review

Bush is submitting because he has no choice. He has no political capital left and cannot continue to oppose the American people on so many issues. It is clear to all (except to the National Review) that this warrantless surveillance program was illegal, it violated the 4th Amendment, and that submitting a warrantless wiretap for FISA emergency review did nothing to dimish the president’s powers to protect the country against terrorism. It was a fight he simply could not win.