Blah Blah Blah, I Love Digby, You Know the Drill

Though she always makes me miss Billmon and the Whiskey Bar.

It's only 18 months until a new administration comes in and they figure they'll deal with all these issues when a Democrat gets in the white house. Or not. There's always the possibility that at least some of them believe these extra-constitutional powers really are a good thing and should be preserved to protect us from the boogeyman. (It should go without saying, however, that Republicans would never let Democrats get away with using these powers. They'd fight it just for the pleasure of it.)

...


By allowing these precedents to stand, these executive powers to go unchallenged, they will be waiting for the next would-be tyrant to pick them up and run with them. The constitutional system depends upon the truism that if all else fails and crooks and miscreants are the only ones holding office, that they will at least have enough ego to preserve their own power. If they fail to do even that, the system could be irretrievably broken.

Um, yeah. I rarely feel like I have one up on Digby, but I could have told you years ago that breaking the system was the whole point of the exercise, and of course Dems won't fight it, since a) they are ultimately beholden to similar (if not the same) forces as Republicans are, and b) Dems of course want the power for themselves. I suppose that c), The Dems are idiots, is also possible. In fact, I think C is very compatible with A or B.

Digby's point about the Republicans actually fighting the Dems on these powers if the Dems gain office is also at once hilarious and scary, mostly because it's totally accurate.