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Originally Posted by roachboy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/cheney/view/
this link take you to a frontline program on cheney/addington and their legal theory of de facto dictatorship, which they reference as the "theory of the unitary executive."---again, this is straight carl schmitt, but with the rhetorical references stripped away.
that it is permissable within the existing system is a problem within the existing system.
one thing i think the bush people have taught us is that the power of the executive can be a Problem if the right right group of neo-fascists get access to it. another thing they *may* have taught is that this possibility--the "unitary executive" tipping toward a theory of dictatorship--is enough a problem that a basic rewrite of the rules might be in order.
in a more rigid type of constitutional system, like you see in continental europe, the bush administration would have already triggered a constitutional crisis. i am not at all sure that the inability of the american system to register crisis is a good thing. i am not at all sure of that.
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I saw the Frontline documentary when it aired. I am not sure if people really underestimated Bush and his administration ( remember all the comments about how dumb he was) or if they simply wasted their time and energy talking about how dumb he was while he played them like a fiddle. Perhaps it was a combination of both. Either way, when one component of our government is not putting up a fight, our form of democracy can surely fail.
Oh, and I know it was the Republicans in Congress who are to blame at first and now that Democrats are in control they have accomplished a lot, and more is to come.