Missing the point on Presidential absolutism

Howard Troxler has good things to say in this column about the danger of unchecked Presidential power: Questions about wiretaps require answers, not criticism St. Petersburg Times 01/26/06. But he winds up at the end with a gratuitous and silly swipe at those of us who have been raising this issue about the Bush administration for, well, years now.

He uses an example that seems to have already become part of the conventional press script on this issue:

If you are comfortable with giving that total power to President Bush, then you must also be comfortable giving it to, say, President Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not me, not in either case.

Do you want Hillary to have that kind of power? In a sophomore political science class, maybe it would be an appropriate question.

But the example really misses the point. The defenders of absolute power for Dear Leader Bush don't intend to ever see the power change out of the hands of the Republican Party again. So trying to talk about this in terms of what if President Hillary were doing this just zips right by what's going on out here in the reality-based world.