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CHICAGO__ |
SUN-TIMES |
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 |
COMMENTARY | 43 |
Mukasey would enable power grab
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____________________ | ANDREW GREELEY "M ichael Mukasey, the presi-dent’s nominee for attor- ney general, is a very dan- gerous man. His predecessor, Alberto Gonzales, was an incom- petent buffoon, a hack from Texas who launched the campaign to turn the country into a military dictatorship in his “secret” memos ridiculing the Geneva Conventions. Mukasey is a charming, intelli- gent man who talks and acts like a wise lawyer on television. How- ever, he believes the president can ignore statutes passed by Con- gress by virtue of his power as commander in chief. The separa- tion of powers, the essence of American democracy, is thereby abolished, and the president be- comes a dictator who can do any- thing he deems necessary to de- fend the country. There is no review either of his decisions or his judgments about the powers of the commander in chief or the specific threat to the country. The president in theory is as absolute |
in his power as Stalin was in Rus- sia. No one reviews him, no one rules on him, no one questions his decisions. The next step will be FBI men injackboots appearing at the doors of presidential critics in the middle of the night. Such is the situation in this country today, at least in White House theory. This is the situation the president and Mukasey want to make permanent. As long as the “global war on terror” contin- ues — and that will be forever in Republican administrations — the United States will in theory be a military dictatorship like Hugo Chavez’s regime in Venezuela or Fidel Castro’s in Cuba. The cur- rent president may not go as far as Stalin or Castro or Chavez do, but in principle, if we are to be- lieve Mukasey, he and his succes- sors could do anything they want. The framers of the Constitution did not intend to give the presi- dent unlimited powers in time of war. They gave Congress the duty to provide for the common de- fense. The commander in chief leads the military, he does not ab- rogate laws he doesn’t like. He does not become a temporary dic- tator in time of emergency. Quite the contrary, according to the new book The Summer of l787 by Wash- ington lawyer David 0. Stewart. The last thing the framers wanted was a dictator. The strict con- structionists on the court today doubtless know that. But just as they forgot their principles of |
strict construction to elect Bush in the first place (stretching the principle of “equal protection un- der the law” far beyond its mean- ing), they would today, giyen the chance, violate “strict construc- tion” to bestow on the president all the power he wants, even if in effect that means the repeal of the Constitution. Most Americans don’t under- stand what is at stake. They don’t grasp that, with a lot of help from Osama bin Laden, Mr. Bush is claiming the right to establish a military dictatorship. He may not be the best president ever, people will say, but he is not scheming for absolute power. He wouldn’t abro- gate freedom of speech or of the press or the right to due process of the law or habeas corpus. He doesn’t look like a Maximum Leader or a Caudillo or a Fuhrer. That certainly is true. But there is no evidence that he accepts any limitation on his wartime powers. If his view of the extent of his powers is accepted, then one of his successors can push presiden- tial power even further, and the president will become in fact as well as in theory an absolute mili- tary dictator. Is there any reason to believe that Rudolph Giullani, who showed distinct fascist tendencies while he was mayor of New York City. would not devote his consid- erable intelligence and willpower to grab absolute control? Bring back Alberto Gonzales! |