I hate to sound like a tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but why would the Bush Administration seek to aggregate all this power to itself under a unitary executive theory only to see that power dismantled (or turned against the Republican Party) should a Democrat be elected President?

On the one hand, my rational mind tells me that Republicans started asserting the unitary executive theory shortly after 9/11 on their thinking, per Karl Rove, that there would be a Republican majority for the foreseeable future. When the democrats regained control of Congress after the 2006 elections, and it became clearer that a Democrat would probably win the White House in 2008, the Bush Administration turned from actively promoting the unitary executive (and the actions that had been taken pursuant to that theory up through 2006) to seeking to close off all avenues to finding out exactly what happened (hence the MCA and the PAA and attempts at telecom retroactive immunity). I also hold out the hope that a Democratic president and Democratic Congress would finally take action starting in 2009 against the Bush Administration (better late than never!).

On the other hand, the darker, more cynical part of my brain (approximately 80%) fears there are more evil purposes afoot. As Glenn points out, just this past week Bush issued a signing statement ignoring Congressional legislation prohibiting the use of funds for the Iraq war to build permanent bases in Iraq. He has also signaled his intention to keep the current level of troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future, thus stopping the draw down of the surge.

It is not so hard for me to envisage a scenario where some type of incident takes place on American soil prior to the elections in November, which would force Bush to declare martial law. Because most of America's armed forces (not to mention the national guard) will still be in Iraq, it will be necessary for Bush to hire Blackwater and similar companies to enforce martial law (with complete immunity, of course). Then, Congress, at his request, would pass a law postponing the elections and allowing Bush to continue as president past the end of his term until the emergency has passed; this law would also contain a proviso that federal courts could not rule on the constitutionality of the law. Even if some intrepid citizen or group were to bring a law suit, the Supreme Court, by a completely coincidental 5-4 vote, would rule that this was a political question and thus it cannot rule on the law (along with a stirring concurrence from Justice Thomas telling everyone to shut the f*ck up). The four dissenting justices (you know who you are) would then all have mysterious accidents and in their places would be confirmed John Yoo, David Addington, Rudy Giuliani and Alberto Gonzales. Because of the continuing threat and the new war against Iran (duh!), the state of emergency would last for several decades, thus necessitating Bush's continued rule.

Does the preceeding sound like a bad David Baldacci novel (or, hopefully, a slightly better Tom Clancy novel)? I acknowledge as much, but given that I have completely lost what little faith I had left in the federal government, I am no longer ruling any thought out of bounds.

Glenn, thank you for your hard work. I will miss you after your disappearance/unfortunate accident.

That's all I got.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy some more duct tape.