There's an interesting article in Newsweek which on the surface is discussing a group of "rebels" in the Department of Justice who allegedly fought a quiet, internal battle to put some checks on runaway executive branch power grabs.
What's more interesting, though, is that it really paints a new picture on the entire history of the Bush administration. It suggests that what we have been led to believe (and critique) as "hawkish" tendencies is really something else: from day one, even before 9/11, a well-orchestrated attempt to broadly extend executive powers.
I am not at all sure I believe this, but let's play the scenario out: what if the Bush administration's goal all along has been broad expansion of executive powers?
Well, first of all you know that the strongest argument for that would be during wartime. So after 9/11 happens, you'd immediately ask Richard Clarke if there's a link to Iraq, you ask Congress for military authorization, and you'd rush in to Afghanistan. When Afghanistan calmed down, you'd want a new enemy, so you'd push for invading Iraq. And frankly, you don't really need or want a timetable for exit, because that just weakens your case. You want Bush to be a "wartime president" now and forever.
What else? You'd want an Attorney General who will support you, even overruling his own department's career attorneys in the process, like Ashcroft did. And when Ashcroft turned out to be too much of a DC bureaucrat, you replace him with the original author of much of your legal rationalization, your own White House counsel, Alberto Gonzalez.
You'd load up the Supreme Court with supporters of a strong executive, too -- like Harriet Myers, and Alito. That's an interesting insight, because it points out that all the furor over whether Roberts would overturn Roe vs. Wade might have been an effective smokescreen for Bush's real agenda: deeper support for a unitary executive. And we missed it. But it suddenly makes Myers' appointment understandable. This is an important hedge in case Congress turns against you, or the Republicans lose control of Congress.
Ok, so this theory is generally consistent with the facts as we know them, and explains some things that never made sense before. But it's a little too neat and fearmongering, so I don't believe it yet. As the saying goes, never assume malice when simple incompetence will suffice. But it will color how I look at everything the Bush administration does from here on.
6:22:36 PM 
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