If you think you have the power, even if you don't, you do

and here ya have it... just don't lose sight of the fact that the coup d'etat became a fait accompli when george w. bush took the oath of office on january 20, 2001, or, perhaps more accurately, when the supreme court handed down its decision of december 12, 2000...

This theory [of the unitary executive], taken to its logical conclusions, gives the President the ability to treat anyone living in the United States, including particularly U.S. citizens, as wartime enemies without having to prove their disloyalty to anyone outside the executive branch. In so doing, it offers him what can only be called dictatorial powers-- that is, the power to suspend ordinary civil liberties protections on his say so. The limits on what the President may do under this theory are entirely political-- the question is whether the American people will stand for what the President has done if they discover what he has done in their name. But if the American people don't know what their executive is doing, they can hardly be in a position to object. And so the President has tried to keep secret exactly what he has done under the unreasonable and overreaching theory of Presidential power that his Administration has repeatedly asserted in its legal briefs and public statements.

Attorney General Gonzales' latest admission should hardly surprise us once we understand how much power the President actually thinks he has. Given that we will probably never know what the President has been doing in our name, we can only hope that he has not actually tried to exercise all the power he (wrongfully) thinks he possesses.

"how much power the President actually 'thinks' he has" discounts the hardcore reality... as the old aphorism about negotiation goes...

"If you don't think you have the power, even if you do, you don't. If you think you have the power, even if you don't, you do."

(thanks to atrios and eschaton...)

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