i'm beginning to wonder if president obama is really in charge of decision making in his admin on matters like the military commissions and torture and matters involving bank bailouts and banking regulations.

increasingly i worry that the prez may be in over his head and simply accepting advice given him when that advice may not be in the nation's best interest, though it might conceivably be in his own short-term political interest.

one of my chief concern about senator obama as president was whether he would strongly attack the bush admin's unconstitutional ballooning of presidential power or prefer to "move forward".

this appointment answers my doubts. i am greatly relieved.

i hope that johnsen will be bold and persistent in reestablishing constitutionally intended boundaries for the authority of the executive branch of our tripartite federal governing arrangement.

my doubts and concerns about repealing the cheney-bush power grab now lie wholly with the behavior of our very conservative federal judiciary - appointments to which have long been manipulated by the Federalist Society.

ggr

wow!

i've never sen this argument put so starkly and concisely.

[Aggressive war is the linchpin of war crimes and tyranny and inevitably produces them. And that's precisely the evidence that is now emerging as a result of the endless, aggressive war people like McArdle and Drezner supported -- the systematic implementation of a regime of torture and lawless detention by the highest levels of our government, the assertion of the right to suspend even the most basic Constitutional liberties such as the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the seizure of power even to break the law and to immunize the lawbreakers, and the ongoing willingness of our highest government officials to lie about terrorist attacks and the law in order to obtain still more unchecked power. ]