The Unaccountable Presidency
From Dan Gilmor:
[Dan Gillmor's eJournal]Jack M. Balkin: The Election and the Constitution. In the past three years, the Bush Administration has reinterpreted the Presidency, and hence the constitutional system of checks and balances, in the image of an all-powerful Commander-in-Chief. In its most extreme form, it produces the logic of the OLC torture memo, which asserts that Congress may not interfere in any way with the President-as-Commander-in-Chief, and that all laws and international obligations that might interfere with his decisions as Commander-in-Chief must be construed not to apply to him. This view of Presidential Caesarism (for that is what it is), is accompanied by an obsessive concern for secrecy and avoiding all forms of transparency and accountability.