One, with respect to Mansfield's notion of the president's necessary, vital and inherent extra-constitutional powers, well, he and his ilk are certainly entitled to hold such beliefs. It is, after all, a free country, and everyone has a right to believe what they wish. And it is, I'll agree, somewhat refreshing (in however narrow a manner) that he has the honesty to admit that the president's "right" to break the law comes not from the constitutional law, but from some sort of higher, natural law, that supercedes mere any written law.

But I do wish that he and his ilk had the courage to come out and openly declare what they have effectively been trying to do (and to a frightening degree succeeded at) since taking over, which is to undertake a bloodless coup in which the authority and legitimacy of the constitution is rendered null and void in any practical and meaningful sense. If they so strongly believe in their cause, then why don't they come out and just say that they thoroughly reject the most basic principles and values (not to mention laws) that underpin our democracy, instead of trying to sneak this through while no one notices?

Of course, this is a rhetorical question, as the answer it is quite obvious. They're smart enough (again, in a very limited sense) to realize that if they did this, the public would likely react harshly, so the surest and safest path to making this happen is to do it quietly and gradually, in increments, as they have in fact been doing. While they ideologically reject our constitution, they were smart enough to realize that to effectively be able to reject it in practice, they'd have to proceed slowly and in the shadows and dead of night, as they have.

Only a complete fool or the truly delusional can look at what they've been saying and doing for the past 6 years and not realize that what the Bush administration has been wanting and trying to do--and to a scary extent succeeding at--is nothing less than the replacement of our constitutional democracy (imperfect though as it's always been) with a form of tyranny and dictatorship whose specific structure has yet to be revealed, via a quiet coup.

And two, the media hasn't covered this because one, it doesn't have the immediate ratings appeal of a missing white woman or school shooting (not that these shouldn't be covered, but so should other stories, I believe, especially if they ultimately affect far more people), and two, they don't want to be seen as feeding into what the right has been desperately trying to cast as paranoid far-left conspiracy theories. Not unlike impeachment or the idea that BushCo knowingly lied about the WMD, the media is being extremely cautious here for fear of once again being accused of having a left-wing bias. So it goes out of its way to suppress these stories.

And the RWNM has been very effective at enforcing this fear and mentality. Even now, I hesitate to discuss such things with my friends and relatives openly, because when I've tried to, it was clear that they viewed me as a bit nutty or at least in need of "chilling out" and "getting a life"--even if they themselves couldn't stand Bush. I'm convinced that the majority of Americans still view BushCo as little more than criminal and corrupt bumblers, but NOT the revolutionary, radical and truly dangerous force that they clearly are.

My great fear is that while we may well survive and even take down this administration and roll back many of its most egregious violations of the constitution, good sense and common decency, we will not acknowledge, confront and properly deal with the reality of just how massively radical this administration has been in its rejection of the constitution and attempt to enable this rejection.

The real danger of BushCo is not its specific actions, policies and people, but the ideas that underlie them. It is these ideas that we have to bring to the surface so they can be exposed and rejected as inherently unconstitutional, un-American and anti-American--and immensely dangerous in their likely consequences for the country and its people. If we don't, we may yet live to see this happen once again, this time possibly if not probably succeessfully.