The Bush administration should not be so quick to condemn Musharraf for suspending the Pakistani constitution. Even though his actions lack the subtlety and finesse of, say, a Dick Cheney, Musharraf seems to have drawn his inspiration from the G. W. Bush presidency.

Yes, because we all remember that time when Bush had the Supreme Court arrested…

By effectively declaring a “wartime exception” to the US Constitution,

Or, more accurately, be exercising the powers which have always been granted to the Executive Branch in a time of war…

G. W. eliminated habeas corpus

No, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. President Bush has not — except in cases of foreign nationals caught outside the territorial jurisdiction of the US. And guess what, those people have never had habeas rights under US law.

authorized domestic spying

You mean like ECHELON? Oh wait, that was long before Bush was elected.

Read the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment does not say that the government cannot search you, it says that such searches must be reasonable. The fact remains that the 9/11 hijackers were in the United States months before the attacks. You really want to argue that the government should not have been able to tap their phones?

There’s a credible argument that the President should have followed FISA, but all that argument says is how one thinks the President should have conducted domestic surveillance, not saying that the President cannot use such measures.

dismissed and harrassed federal judges

Absolutely wrong.

The President dismissed US Attorneys, who under the Constitution serve the President. The President has the power under the Constitution to hire and fire such individuals at will.

You’re wrong on the facts. and wrong on a critically important fact.

and has systematically used “signing statements” to declare that he will not enforce laws passed by both houses of Congress.

OK, open your Constitution once again. Take a look at Article II, Section 1, clause 8. It’s the oath that the President takes before taking office. It says that the President has to defend the Constitution.

So, if Congress passes a law that the President believes to be unconstitutional he can veto it. However, if the President signs a law that can be unconstitutional under certain circumstances, what can should he do? That’s what a signing statement is. It is the President saying that the Executive Branch will enforce a law in such a way as to comply with the Constitution.

The Supreme Court can say, “no, the law must be enforced this way,” but the Supreme Court only has jurisdiction under Article III if there’s an actual “case or controversy” involved. Moreover, they can’t get involved unless there’s an actual case or controversy and someone’s actually been hurt (or as it’s called in Constitutional Law, the person suing has to have “standing”).

So, the Executive can say how they will interpret a bill for Congress. That isn’t law, but policy, and the courts don’t have to recognize it at all. It’s not unconstitutional for the President to do this, and in fact a President who is following his/her oath and the Faithful Execution Clause has to make note of such things and try to follow Congress without doing something against the Constitution.

And by the way, G. W. is predicting that his “war” will outlive most of us.

Which it almost certainly will, just as the Cold War outlived Truman’s generation.

That amounts to a permanent suspension of our constitution and a dangerous, unprecedented concentration of power in the Oval Office.

A dangerous, unprecedented concentration of power that is neither dangerous, nor unprecedented, but a restoration of traditional powers that the Executive Branch had for most of this country’s history.

So much for checks and balances. Regime change, anyone?

And if you think that a President Hillary Clinton (*shudder*) would be any better, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you…