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Mukasey, the president's nominee for attorney general, is a very dangerous
man. His predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, was an incompetent buffoon, a hack
from Texas who launched the campaign to turn the country into a military
dictatorship in his "secret" memos ridiculing the Geneva Conventions. Mukasey is a charming, intelligent man who talks and acts like a wise lawyer on television. However, he believes the president can ignore statutes passed by Congress by virtue of his power as commander in chief. The separation of powers, the essence of American democracy, is thereby abolished, and the president becomes a dictator who can do anything he deems necessary to defend the country. There is no review either of his decisions or his judgments about the powers of the commander in chief or the specific threat to the country. The president in theory is as absolute in his power as Stalin was in Russia. No one reviews him, no one rules on him, no one questions his decisions. The next step will be FBI men in jackboots appearing at the doors of presidential critics in the middle of the night. |
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Such is the situation in this country today, at least in White House theory. This is the situation the president and Mukasey want to make permanent. As long as the "global war on terror" continues -- and that will be forever in Republican administrations -- the United States will in theory be a military dictatorship like Hugo Chavez's regime in Venezuela or Fidel Castro's in Cuba. The current president may not go as far as Stalin or Castro or Chavez do, but in principle, if we are to believe Mukasey, he and his successors could do anything they want. The framers of the Constitution did not intend to give the president unlimited powers in time of war. They gave Congress the duty to provide for the common defense. The commander in chief leads the military, he does not abrogate laws he doesn't like. He does not become a temporary dictator in time of emergency. Quite the contrary, according to the new book The Summer of 1787 by Washington lawyer David O. Stewart. The last thing the framers wanted was a dictator. The strict constructionists on the court today doubtless know that. But just as they forgot their principles of strict construction to elect Bush in the first place (stretching the principle of "equal protection under the law" far beyond its meaning), they would today, given the chance, violate "strict construction" to bestow on the president all the power he wants, even if in effect that means the repeal of the Constitution. |
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Most Americans don't understand what is at stake. They don't grasp that, with a lot of help from Osama bin Laden, Mr. Bush is claiming the right to establish a military dictatorship. He may not be the best president ever, people will say, but he is not scheming for absolute power. He wouldn't abrogate freedom of speech or of the press or the right to due process of the law or habeas corpus. He doesn't look like a Maximum Leader or a Caudillo or a Fuhrer. That certainly is true. But there is no evidence that he accepts any limitation on his wartime powers. If his view of the extent of his powers is accepted, then one of his successors can push presidential power even further, and the president will become in fact as well as in theory an absolute military dictator. Is there any reason to believe that Rudolph Giuliani, who showed distinct fascist tendencies while he was mayor of New York City, would not devote his considerable intelligence and willpower to grab absolute control? Bring back Alberto Gonzales!
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 Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women Father Greeley strips away centuries of false and mistaken interpretations to get at the essential truth of who Jesus really was and what he believed.  Read
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