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Glenn wrote:
There, they are really flirting with something that the Bush DOJ never did, though they were often tempted: telling a court that they will explicitly refuse to abide by a court order on the ground that courts lack authority.
This undermining of the federal judicial system is scary - especially when put together with the decision to go ahead with military commissions.
Regarding doing what Bush didn't - is that only because the situation hadn't ever got to this point under the Bush DOJ?
The Obama admin seems to be in a much different place than that of the Bush administration. For example, part of Bush's assertions of executive authority and trampling of civil liberties led to years of legislative back-and-forth on FISA, which also seemed have had the effect of slowing down some of the court cases. I remember at one point a court (the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Walker?) holding off to see what Congress would do.
The situation is different now, unless Congress gets moving on state secrets legislation. But maybe that will be undermined, too? If Obama's goals are the same as Bush's, what else can he do but to move "forward" with new arguments, since the old arguments didn't work?
