"They expect our trust, but they can't be bothered to earn it"

Good piece in the Trib: Steve Chapman reviews the general shape of the Bush ambition to empire. There’s not much detail that’s new, but he’s stacked the familiar pieces into a whole that may pull them together more tightly than you’re used to seeing:

President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions. [ . . . ]

But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.

I’m adding this to the Readings list in the sidebar.