“The war is hardly the only area where the Bush administration is trying to expand its powers beyond all legal justification. But the danger of an imperial presidency is particularly great when a president takes the nation to war, something the founders understood well. In the looming showdown, the founders and the Constitution are firmly on Congress’s side.” More here.

The Founding Fathers are probably turning on their graves right now over Bush. Thing is though, that what he has done is not illegal. He made sure that he passes bills that gave him that jurisdiction. And somehow he passed these bills without anyone noticing. Now, no matter what Bush does, he’s on the clear: he has his own laws on his side. The real problem in the situation is not Bush (he’s going away soon), but with these laws in place, future presidents can be as boneheaded too.

This whole deal kinda reminded me how the democracy in ancient Rome fell. It was little by little, year by year, within 50 years. It was not a one-thing-off shake off thing and so for the next 100 years Roman citizens still thought that they actually had democracy. But they didn’t. History seems to be repeating itself.

Update: Wow, I had no idea about this book (found it by googling after writing the above).