Bloodless Coup

What did Gonzales know about all this, hmm?

And not to be quoting liberal Hollywood and all that, but check out Kung Fu Monkey:

Under. Our. Laws. And. Constitution. That's the tricky bit. Sadly, I'm fairly sure that the President's grasp of law is thin enough that he genuinely believes that when John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales put memos in front of him and tell him that this shit is legal, he a.) genuinely believes them and therefore b.) is pissed people are obstructing his perfectly Constitutional and legal procedures. The alternative, of course, is immensely more unpleasant.

And another thing... the founders came up in another thread. This is a nice view of the founders and the idea of executive privilege:

The notion that one of the three branches of our Government can claim power unchecked by the other two branches is precisely what the Founders sought, first and foremost, to preclude. And the fear that a U.S. President would attempt to seize power unchecked by the law or by the other branches – i.e., that the Executive would seize the powers of the British King – was the driving force behind the clear and numerous constitutional limitations placed on Executive power. It is these very limitations which the Bush Administration is claiming that it has the power to disregard because the need for enhanced national security in time of war vests the President with unchecked power.

But that theory of the Executive unconstrained by law is completely repulsive to the founding principles of the country, as well as to the promises made by the Founders in order to extract consent from a monarchy-fearing public to the creation of executive power vested in a single individual. The notion that all of that can be just whimsically tossed aside whenever the nation experiences external threats is as contrary to the country’s founding principles as it is dangerous.

It cannot be said that the Founders were unaware of the potential for national emergencies and external threats. They engaged in a war with the British which was at least as much of an existential threat to the Republic as those posed by 9/11 and related threats of Islamic extremism. Notwithstanding those threats, the Founders, in creating an Executive branch, sought first and foremost to ensure that the President could never wield unchecked powers which would exist above and separate from Congressionally enacted laws.

Binky,
So in the interest of justice I think we should try FDR for violating the rights of those Japanese people interned during WWII, or it would be if the Court hadn't ruled as I posted in the other thread that restrictions on liberties were appropriate under the threat of espionage during the time of war. And we should go ahead and try Lincoln because he basically told the Constitution to have sex with its mother (the Magna Carta?) when he took away rights during the Civil War. If Michael Moore had been alive in 1865, Lincoln wouldn't have been thought of as someone who brought liberties to an oppressed people (as Bush has done), he would have been seen as a great oppressor bringing tyranny to our country, that damned king Abraham Lincoln. To Michael Moore FDR wouldn't be someone who ended a holocaust, he would be someone killed a bunch of Americans and destroyed a German paradise.

It wasn't oil money FDR wanted, it was all that ball bearing money, that's why he killed Americans.

Morris - Acting illegally is acting illegally. You don't get "context" or "it's for a good cause" exceptions. If you did, law would be meaningless. And if the threat is as great as you think (though comparing it to WWII or the Civil War is absurd) go pass a law that'll give the president this authority to commit these acts. I mean if the threat is so grave he should be able to get that, right? Hell the Republicans even control every branch of government at the moment. So pass a law.

Until then, he's acting illegally, and 1) these actions should cease and 2) investigations and proescutions should occur.

As to your continual "people in history did bad stuff too" excuses. Fine. The current president isn't the only person to have every broken the law. That doesn't excuse acting illegally.