Thank god for right-wing websites, otherwise the law would be clear. I suspect the more that's learned about this, the more vague the right-wing arguments will become, til at last they will be speaking in tongues while waving flags.

Meanwhile, back in the reality-based world...

The lessons the rest of us learned from Watergate and Vietnam were about the failures of leadership. What Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld learned was that if they'd been able to control the message they'd have gotten away with it.

So they set out to control the message, and thirty years later can get away with anything. Anything. We're at the point where the New York Times won't tell its readers that the executive branch is spying on Americans without warrants. They held that news through his reelection, and only came clean when someone on their staff was about to tell the world.

Blumenthal's phrase, "Cheney's idea of the head of state invested with absolute power...", reminded me of an item I saw in Newsweek some time ago. When asked for his favorite philosopher, Cheney replied, "Thomas Hobbes". Knowing this can help us understand where this administration is coming from. Hobbes saw states created by social contracts between subjects, who in turn, selected their leaders. Those leaders' decisions were not to be questioned because they were the reflection of the people who chose them. Hobbes' favorite rule was absolute monarchy. Political philosopher William Ebenstein tells us Hobbes favored monarchy because "it is easier for one than for many to act resolutely and consistently." Ebenstein tells us further, "(Hobbes)is vehemently opposed to division of powers,or mixed government...(and)there is particular danger in the liberty of the subject to challenge the wisdom or legality of the sovereign's actions." Professor Yoo and VP Cheney couldn't have put it better.