AUMF, she sighed.

Good piece by Jacob Weisberg in Slate: The Power-Madness of King George.

Simply put, Bush and his lawyers contend that the president's national security powers are unlimited. And since the war on terror is currently scheduled to run indefinitely, the executive supremacy they're asserting won't be a temporary condition.

This extremity of Bush's position emerges most clearly in a 42-page document issued by the Department of Justice last week. As Andrew Cohen, a CBS legal analyst, wrote in an online commentary, "The first time you read the 'White Paper,' you feel like it is describing a foreign country guided by an unfamiliar constitution." To develop this observation a bit further, the nation implied by the document would be an elective dictatorship, governed not by three counterpoised branches of government but by a secretive, possibly benign, awesomely powerful king.

…according to Gonzales, [Bush] has garnered even more authority under the congressional authorization for the use of military force, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. This resolution is invariably referred to by the ungainly acronym AUMF—the sound, perhaps, of civil liberties being exhaled by a democracy.

I admit the piece is a little bit of a “Yeah, that’s the general consensus around here,” but it’s a good summary and well-written with some enjoyable snark.

Totally unrelated (except insomuch as it addresses yet another signal that we are living in some parallel universe that aspires to be Bizarro America) but also worth a read: The Poor Man suggests we stage an all-star panel on blogger ethics in his pants. Good idea, say I.