http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2007/10/a-review-of-jac.html

(or click on the sig)

"Jack Goldsmith's "The Terror Presidency" is one of the most interesting and most insightful books yet to come out of the Bush White House.

In October 2003, President Bush appointed Goldsmith, a self-described conservative who proudly proclaims that he is not a civil libertarian, head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, thus making him chief adviser to the president about the legality of presidential actions. Ten months later, Goldsmith resigned because he could not endorse the unlawful policies the administration had implemented in the war on terror."

.....

[About the panicked attitude in the White House after 9/11]

Exacerbating this attitude was a profound and little-noted transformation in the legal position of the executive branch over the last 50 years. In past crises, presidents like Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt faced extreme threats to the national security. But they enjoyed broad freedom to respond to the danger without meaningful legal constraint.

....

[The Bush response]

The Bush administration's response to this dilemma was to embrace a historically unprecedented conception of the constitutional powers of the president. This view, which was championed by Addington and John Yoo, author of the notorious "torture memos," maintains that presidential power is "coextensive with presidential responsibility." In Addington's view, because the president "would be blamed for the next homeland attack, he must have the power" to do whatever he deemed necessary to prevent it, regardless of international and U.S. laws. According to Goldsmith, in advocating this position, which goes far beyond anything any president has ever asserted, Addington "was channeling the Vice President and . . . the President."

.....

[Conclusion]

To understand this book, it is necessary to keep in mind that Goldsmith generally agrees with the Bush administration about the measures the government must take to protect national security. His objection is not to the policies, but to the way they were adopted. Put differently, he is concerned less with civil liberties than with the separation of powers. As Goldsmith observes, "Political debate is one of the strengths of democracy in wartime, for it allows the country's leadership to learn about and correct its errors." Because the Bush administration eschewed consultation with Congress, the nation "still lacks the comprehensive, coherent, and durable institutions it needs to surveil, detain, and incapacitate terrorists."

The net effect of the Bush administration approach has been deeply ironic. Although "the President and Vice President wanted to leave the presidency stronger than they found it," they "achieved the opposite." By unlawfully disregarding statutory, international and constitutional law, they "borrowed against the power of future presidencies -- presidencies that . . . will be viewed by Congress and the courts . . . with a harmful suspicion and mistrust." Because of the Bush administration's obsession with excessive presidential power, our nation and our democracy are less secure.

-----------------------------

Point of posting this is that even from the point of view that the President has legitimate powers to do certain things, the Bush approach is wrong.

PS: this too should be read:

http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2007/09/conscience-of-a.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/6/5/72459/18259/879/530013

or click on sig

I can imagine that ten thousand bloggers linking to, say, a McClatchy investigative report is commercially worth something.

In fact, in the constant attention we pay to bad journalism - discussing it, reading it, linking to it - we are giving sunlight, fertilizer and water to the weeds. Then we become part of the problem.

IMO, it is far, far more important to pay attention to the excellent, to promote it, to praise it, to publicize it than it is to criticize the current mainstream mediocrities.

We bloggers have the eyeballs to find the needles in the haystack, and the means to exponentially expand the awareness of such excellence. Simply digg, link to, write about, comment on the good stuff.

It rewards us too, because we get more good stuff to read.

I wonder what my upbringing has to do with the argument I make. Perhaps your (mal)education leads you to non sequiturs.

As rollotomasi points out, the media is driven by economic considerations.

In the web world, economic value is measured by number of hits on your site. The more you get, the more valuable your web property is. It does not matter why you get the hits.

Another ranking of your website is generated by how many other sites link to it; the higher the better.

If the last two propositions are not true, I'd be curious to know just how.

Linking to bad articles is not shining light on cockroaches, it is giving them nourishment. If you must discuss these, at least discuss them without linking to them.

Any number of people will be positioning themselves for easy confirmation votes in the Senate by supporting "centrist" "Village-pleasing" "serious" positions. Doesn't mean Obama will nominate them.

In every election there has to be a "None of the above" choice.

If "None of the above" wins, then the election must be held again, and the current crop of candidates are barred from running.

In short, you're as corrupt and malicious as Dick Cheney, and are too cowardly to admit it.

You have to realize in his world, you've paid NotOrbitBoy the supreme compliment of putting him in the Cheney class. So it can only be he's too modest.

Great idea! Very promising execution.

Pay no attention to bernfart.

I imagine GG will have even less time to go through mountains of comments.

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it once stood...

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it once stood...

I listened to your interview with Daniel Elsberg. I am older so I learned nothing new. .... After all Ellsberg admitted he was inspired to take risks because of the protests at draft boards.

When did you learn the last sentence?