Obama may well have detested most, if not all, the Bush administration's malevolent and unconstitutional acts while he was a Senator. But now that he's President, as it turns out he stands in shoes that could take advantage of those same positions unless somebody stopped him. And as Bush said, "a dictatorship would be nice so long as I'm the dictator."

If a Democratic majority in Congress did nothing to stop George Bush from vitiating the Constitution, how long did anyone think it would take Obama and/or his advisors to wonder whether just maybe they should keep those powers in place "but use them only for Good"?

What is happening is only a "shock" to the extent that people have been so impressed with Obama and his stated intentions that they have mistakenly presumed he could not be swayed by the actual structure of the powers that have been usurped by the Presidency under the Bush administration and concomitant Congressional inaction. A worthy hope, but one inconsistent with the perception of human nature that underlies the structure of our Constitution: that without effective checks and balances, one branch of government will seek dominance over the others and the rights of the people will suffer.

I don't think Obama is evil and I don't think that he's Bush. But I do think that unless Congress grows a spine the Obama administration isn't voluntarily going to relinquish the powers that the Bush administration left on the desk. And I am quite certain that Congress won't grow a spine all by itself, since that was proven under the Bush administration and the "cult of Obama worship" being seen so far is allowing Congress to deflect its own responsibility in the disingenuous direction of "leaving everything for Obama to fix."

This is why I am so hopeful to see the kind of increasingly broad media and progressive attention to the failings of the Obama administration in these crucial Constititutional debates right now. The Obama administration is hoping for one thing: that there will be no groundswell of vocal opposition. If they can make it through the current minefield of legal challenges to Bush administration policies and simultaneously avoid having to take definitive positions with respect to war crimes (hopefully by invoking the "there's a lot on his plate" meme), there is an underlying presumption that Congress isn't going to have the guts to do anything about enforcing the Constitution or the Rule of Law. The courts take a long damn time, everybody knows it and Obama's advisors are banking on it.

Does Congress have the guts to enforce the Constitution? Does Congress think anyone realizes that it, too, has a role to play in defending the Rule of Law in America? Only if pushed, would be my bet. Therefore, push. Thanks, Glenn, for your efforts.

And Mukasey thinks the torture memos shouldn't have been released, which WSJ thinks merits op-ed space.

But it is fun to reflect on for a bit.