Thursday, April 05, 2007

So Fcuking Scary!

Glenn Greenwald - Salon: "More than any other candidate, Giuliani exudes those authoritarian traits, which is what accounts for his unparalleled popularity as a candidate, including among the extremist base of the GOP. And it's why they can't stand McCain even though his views are actually more doctrinally 'conservative' than Giuliani's -- because McCain doesn't seem to hate liberals viscerally enough and seems to believe in some (very minimal) limits and restraints on what the Leader can do.

Rudy Giuliani -- the leading Republican candidate for President -- has made two of the most extraordinary statements of any major presidential candidate in a long time. In a rational world, this would be a major scandal and Democratic (and the other Republican) candidates would be rushing to make their views clear on these matters. But the revelation that Giuliani believes in process-less imprisonment (and that Romney can only decide once his lawyers are done debating it) provoked virtually no attention (but hey, those first-quarter fundraising numbers sure were interesting!).

Despite the fact that the media is only recently acknowledging it, we have had a serious Constitutional crisis in this country for the last six years as a result of a President who literally embraces a theory that vests him with the power to ignore the law. That crisis never really materialized because the submissive Congress acquiesced to the concept of President as monarch -- the Republican-led Congress (often with the passive acceptance of Democrats) chose to do nothing when the array of presidential lawbreaking was discovered (other than pass laws retroactively legalizing the lawbreaking). For that reason, it is actually unknown what the Bush administration would really do if Congress (or the courts) sought to impose genuine limits on the President's will even in areas where those branches have unquestioned authority to act -- would the White House accept those limits or proclaim them to be invalid (because they impermissibly interfere with the President's "inherent powers") and ignore them? But here Giuliani is, making expressly clear what he would do in such a situation. Nothing can limit his powers, including express provisions of the Constitution regarding war-making. That seems worthy of some note, at least.

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