The American revolution, if it was about one thing, sought to banish the idea that people should be governed by a king, a ruler who could do what he wanted and ignore the laws passed by the people.

And, yet, we have arrived at a time when our president, who often sermonizes about the great virtues of American democracy, thinks of himself as a king. On and on, the president (now assisted by the vice president) continues to, quite brazenly, insist that it was just fine if he avoided the law to order the secret wiretapping program against people in the U.S. (and today we learn that some of those conversations were purely domestic, contrary to the initial claims made that the conversations all had at least one foreign components).

Here's an example of a courageous senator, someone who New Yorkers would be proud to have as our representative in Congress:

Washington, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today asked four presidential scholars for their opinion on former White House Counsel John Dean's statement that President Bush admitted to an "impeachable offense" when he said he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge.

Boxer said, "I take very seriously Mr. Dean's comments, as I view him to be an expert on Presidential abuse of power. I am expecting a full airing of this matter by the Senate in the very near future."

I noticed today that the governor of Maine is proposing bringing wireless Internet to 90 percent of Maine residents.

I'll go one better than the governor. Our campaign is proposing that the government spend $4 billion (one week of the cost of the Iraq war) to bring wireless Internet service to every community in the country.

Such an expenditure on the part of the federal government--which I will propose if I am elected--would be a huge competitive boon for many communities in our state, particularly those that have been hit by job losses due to bad trade agreements

This seems like a fairly straightforward issue: the president broke the law by authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens. Period. He can justify his argument until the cows come come but we should not let him do so--he is not above the law, be broke the law and this strikes me as an impeachable offense.

I think the American people understand this, also. Last night, I was on the Laura Flanders' radio show on Air America. The brilliant Flanders had a segment, prior to my appearance, on the wiretapping issue--the phones went wild with calls. And the topic flowed into the hour that Laura and I chatted about my campaign.

The arrogance of this president and his disrespect for the rule of law can be illustrated in one tiny fact. Actually, wiretaps on American citizens can be approved by a little-known court that does its business in secret. Jim Bamford, an expert on the NSA (and a comrade from the National Writers Union), has pointed out that that court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court) has only rejected one request for a wiretap in its entire history.

Yet, this president cannot even abide by the formality of submitting the wiretap requests to a court. The arrogance of power has reached a new level.

As citizens, we must press for the Congress to investigate whether the law has been broken. If it has, certainly such a violation of law meets the standard of an impeachable offense.

Through the blinding snow trudged the hardy to our meeting last night in Ithaca. The group had a great set of questions,touching on the issues, who my political heros are or were (Wellstone, Mandela, King and Emma Goldman) and what my daily routine is like (I was certain this question was planted by my mother)

I wanted to briefly mention one question: is this campaign going to be just a New York City-based campaign? Absolutely not. In fact, in just over a week of campaigning, my first two public campaign events were in the Hudson Valley (where we now have our first chapter emerging) and Ithaca. Our campaign will be active and engaged in every part of the state, and seek to mobilize activists everywhere. Because, as I said from the outset, short of winning the election, our campaign wants to leave a more energized, connected and networked movement throughout the state which can support candidates for the coming years in races throughout the state.

Thanks to Will Fudeman and Roberta Wallitt for agreeing to spearhead the work to start our Ithaca chapter.

And, of course, I had the pleasure of dining at the Moosewood Restaurant.

Now, I'm just relaxing at the airport waiting to see if the snow will let up to get out. Thank god for wireless Internet--which, by the way, is one of our campaign planks (see Wifi For Everyone)