The unilateral Executive theory of Presidential power

Digby makes an important point about today's Republican Party, specifically in regard to Dark Lord Cheney's "unilateral Executive" theory of Presidential power. For authoritarian Republicans like the Party's leaders today, the Party is the ultimate source of legitimacy. Not the Constitution, not the law. Not even ideology, except so far as ideology protects the power of the Party and the economic and class interests to which it is dedicated to serving. Digby writes:

It's actually a straight line from the Watergate pardon to Iran-Contra (and its pardons) to impeachment to the stolen election of 2000 to the unitary executive abuses of the Bush presidency and the Iraq war. It doesn't really have anything to do with Dick Cheney's alleged theory of executive power, since he employs it only when he's defending a lawless Republican administration. (I don't exactly recall old Dick standing up and complaining loudly about the imperial congress spending eight years harassing the executive when the executive was a Democrat, do you?)

Cheney and his boys escalate whenever and wherever they have institutional control. He doesn't actually believe in a powerful executive. He believes in a powerful Republican Party and so do all of his lock-step brethren --- by any means necessary. (my emphasis)

Let's hope that most of them don't quite hold the "by any means necessary" perspective!

Tags: bush, cheney, unilateral executive, unitary executive