No Kings

Update on the continuing attempts of the Bush Administration to scrap our system of checks and balances in favor of a supreme executive:

The Administration had recently demanded that Google reveal the search history of individual users, in a bid to revive an anti-pornography law that has already been struck down by the (pre-Alito) Supreme Court. Now, Bush officials maintain that the president's authority supersedes Congress in matter of "war powers", meaning that the president doesn't have to follow the law if he says that his actions are for the purpose of "national security" (for reference, this type of declaration is exactly what dictators do in countries like Egypt in order to give themselves absolute power).

The Bush administration is overstepping its authority so far, so fast, and in so many ways that opposition forces can barely be marshalled to stop one transgression before the next one occurs. One day civil libertarians are fighting the arbitrary detention of U.S. citizen Jose Padilla, the next day they're reeling from reports of secret CIA prisons scattered throughout the world, the next day they're struggling with Bush's warrantless spying program, and the next day they're watching Bush use "presidential signing statements" to interpret any law to mean something other than it means. This cascade of successive assaults on the U.S. system of checks and balances is the classic tactic used by dictators trying to overcome republican safeguards - hit them with something new every day, and they'll stop fighting the old threat and start fighting the new one.

We should make a big list of all the administration's transgressions, and use that list as a rallying cry for a general push against the "supreme executive" crowd. I suspect we'll find more than a few allies on the conservative side who'll be willing to rally to such a banner (conservatives go on all day about how they want "limited government", there's surely a sizeable chunk who'll put their money where their mouth is). We'll have to temporarily put aside our differences over abortion and issues like that, but I think this is an important enough issue to warrant such a truce.

With a big comprehensive list of Bush's oversteps, we'll be able to attack all of the problems at once; after America sees the choice clearly spelled out, and inevitably decides that it doesn't want a supreme executive, the oversteps will be rolled back one by one. The precedent for the success of such a "list of tyrannies" is good - the Declaration of Independence, which catalogued the executive overreach of good old King George II.


BONUS READING GUIDE:
Japan update: Prime Minister Koizumi fights for women's rights and suggests mending ties with China, South Korea, and Russia. Way to go KJ! At least there's one executive in the world using power responsibly.