The Trial of G. W. Bush

A Halloween Horror Tale

 
He closed his eyes. The image of his family, their faces gathered tearfully around his bed, faded. He drew a breath, his last, and heaved no more. There was a temporary pain, only a few seconds, and then he saw a bright light. Slowly he struggled to his feet and walked unevenly towards it. So this is what I have been waiting for all my life, he thought. My final reward.

The light shone through an open door, and Bush stepped through it. He rubbed his eyes. This was not heaven.

He turned to his left and saw a large man in a guard's uniform standing next to him. Without a word, the guard reached for Bush's wrists and slapped handcuffs on. Bush could feel sharp claws on the guard's hands as he yanked on the cuffs. They were cold, and not the hands of a human. What was going on? Was he under arrest?

Forcibly the guard led him up a dozen steps and into a wood paneled room. This was a courtroom, but no earthly courtroom. The court audience was composed of the strangest mix of creatures he had ever seen -- angels and demons crowded wing-to-horn on bench after bench, packed so tightly that they spilled out into the aisles. To make their way past them, Bush and the guard had weave left and right to avoid an obstructing wing here, an errant cloven hoof there. Though Bush had always thought of angel and devil as mortal enemies, they seemed content to sit together. As the guard marched him towards the front of the court, the gallery erupted, the demons spitting out every expletive known to the netherworld, the angels shrieking like eagles diving upon their prey.

The guard led Bush to the defendant's seat at the front of the court. He looked cross the aisle, and with mute astonishment watched as a huge devil, flames pouring from his blistering skin, took a seat on the other side.

A whisper in his ear. "That's the prosecutor, Mr. President." Bush could hardly pull his eyes away from the hideous creature, but when he did he saw that the whisperer was a man. And not just any man. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bush, I am your attorney, Clarence Darrow."

"Mr. Darrow," Bush said anxiously, "I am very glad to see you here. You and I seem to be the only humans in the room. Can you tell me what is going on here?"

"You are on trial, Mr. Bush, for the crimes of your lifetime. There are three charges against you, as you will soon see. The pleas you enter, and the judge's decision on the charges, will determine if you go to heaven, or hell."

"Can we get a continuance?"

"I am glad to see you have not lost your sense of humor, Mr. Bush, but no. This trial continues until it is completed. Since you are now dead all the facts of your life are in evidence. But fear not; I have reviewed your case carefully and think we have a good chance of winning."

Their conversation was interrupted by the pounding of a staff on the floor. A centaur took his place on one side of the judge's bench. "This trial, G. W. Bush vs. the State of Eternal Judgment is called to order. All rise for the judge, the Honorable John Doe." A black robed figure emerged from a door behind the bench. The judge was an absolutely normal looking man, white haired, balding, and thin, someone who could have spent his entire life as a clerk in a customs office.

"Not what I expected," Bush whispered to Darrow.

"He is a common man with a common intellect. You are not to be judged by some superhuman standard, Mr. Bush, but by common sense."

The judge called the court to order, and promptly asked that the first charge be read.

The Prosecutor, the huge devil who had so terrified Bush when he walked in, rose to his feet, and said, "Your honor, the first charge: That the defendant ordered an invasion of a foreign country on false pretenses, resulting the loss of life of many thousands of people."

"Your evidence?"

The Prosecutor waived his hand and with a pop a fire erupted in the middle of the room. Within the blue flames all in the room could see flashes of events from the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The audience saw speeches about weapons of mass destruction and public reports trumping up false evidence.

The judge turned to Bush. "How do you plead?"

Bush stood up. "Innocent, sir." He sat down. Then Darrow stood up to speak.

"Your honor, my client is the victim of circumstance. He is dependent upon his minions to deliver accurate information to him. My client is a good man and only wanted to do the right thing. He believed in the people who advised him, and acted on the best information he had at the time. Like any leader, my client had to make a rapid decision based on incomplete information. The war the Prosecutor refers to may have been right, or it may have been wrong, but my client did his level best to come to the defense of the people he led.

"Further, he only wanted what was best for the enemy, the people of Iraq. His goal was to free an enslaved people and bring them democracy. Is this not the height of morality, to seek to bring good to one's enemies? Certainly this is no crime!"

The judge paused a minute. "Counselor, well put. I find your arguments wise, and agree with you fully. Your client is found innocent of this charge."

A cry went up from the gallery. The centaur pounded the staff. "Order!" he boomed out.

The judge said: "Prosecutor, you may now read the second charge."

The Prosecutor stood up again. "That the accused has used his presidential power and the excuse of war to deprive his own people of their civil rights." The demon waived his hand again, and in the flames were images of Bush approving orders to spy on private citizens, and to harass individuals in America and abroad in the name of national security. There were plans to limit access to voting, and efforts to jail people without fair proceedings. Finally, there were the faces of people tortured during interrogation processes.

As before, Bush rose to plead his innocence, and then Darrow spoke in his defense. "Your honor, my client was only trying to protect. As a leader, his primary goal was to assure the safety of his people. Why do people choose leaders? Why do they choose to follow authority, and not to wander the plain like lost sheep? Because leadership offers safety. When a group moves as one mind, under a leader, it is safe. My client was only interested in protecting his followers, and this required moving with determination, and decisively."

There was a murmur in the crowd.

"Any mistake my client may have made in this matter was certainly not his own. Often he had faulty information to work with. The news media distorted his every action. Under the circumstances, his accomplishments have been admirable -- yes, I say -- admirable. His followers, did they object to the tiny compromises in their freedoms that their leader made? No! They did not object. They stood with him. And what of the few who suffered for the many? This is the way of heaven, is it not? Does not the Bible, time and time again, tell the stories of men who are called to suffer for the salvation of the majority!"

Mr. Darrow sat down, and again the judge paused to consider. "Again, counselor, I find your arguments persuasive. Your client is found innocent of the second charge. Prosecutor, please read the third charge."

For the third time the Prosecutor stood up. Blue and gold flames streamed form his body more brightly than ever, and in his face Bush could see an expression of frustration. The terrible Prosecutor could not believe things had gone so well for the defendant.

"That the accused has failed to use the great powers given to him by Providence. That a great hurricane struck the homeland and he went on vacation that very day, not returning to aid the poor and suffering until embarrassment made it unavoidable. That he made no effort to make life easier for the millions of poor under his charge, and was unwilling to help the suffering who had no access to health care."

For the last time the Prosecutor raised his arm. In the burst of flame before the court, Bush could see thousands of stranded people waiting for help, without food and water. There were people standing on their own roofs, weeping, abandoned in a wealthy country. He could see people with terrible illnesses, suffering without any hope of succor.

The crowd gasped.

Bush pleaded innocent to this charge as to all the rest. Again Darrow made his case. "Your honor, this last charge may seem the most serious and difficult to surmount, but it is in fact the easiest. Is it the duty of a parent to protect his child from every scrape and harm? No. A parent should, indeed, must, allow the vicissitudes of life to take their toll. For a child must grow to become a man or woman, and must face and overcome hardships on his own. We begin as children, but cannot forever remain so. We are adults, and responsible each for our own selves. A parent who protects his child from all harm places the child in a bubble, and denies that child the opportunity to grow. For we only grow when we learn personal responsibility!

"My friends, and your Honor, a great leader leads, but he does not always protect. Does God save every child from death? Is it not true that a protector can also be a jail keeper? My client allows his followers to do what they think is best for themselves. He allows them the freedom to choose their own paths. It is reasonable to expect that this loving mode of leadership might occasionally lead to difficulties. A parent expects his child to scrape his knee from time to time. This is how the child learns.

"The defense rests."

The gallery erupted in a conflagration of joy and rage, angels weeping and hugging one another, devils bounding back and forth like animals and hurling balls of flame against the ceiling.

"Enough!" the judge said. The courtroom quieted. "Mr. Bush, you have presented your case well. My compliments to your defense attorney, Mr. Darrow. He has carried the day many times in this court, and recently, more and more often. I find  you innocent of the final charge. You are remanded into the custody of your counsel, who will deliver you to your eternal dwelling."

Bush was elated. Free! He gazed into Mr. Darrow's eyes, and saw within them a hint of confidence and pride. Many men like this one have worked for me in the White House, he thought.

Mr. Darrow took Bush by the arm and led him to the steps outside the courthouse. A throng of reporters had gathered there, angels, devils, and all means of beasts, snapping pictures and asking questions. The trial of the President was big news in heaven and hell. Bush thanked his defender, told jokes and laughed, and said, "I was confident that I would succeed from the very beginning. Mr. Darrow is an excellent lawyer and he did me great justice. I will enjoy spending all eternity in his neighborhood. And so, to you Mr. Darrow, I say: Mission Accomplished."

Most of the reporters laughed heartily, but some of the angel reporters shuffled their feet with uneasiness. Bush couldn't figure out why. But he was too happy to be concerned.

After Bush had answered all of the questions, Mr. Darrow touched him on the arm. "Mr. Bush," Darrow said, "A word with you, please?"

Bush said his goodbyes to the reporters. Mr. Darrow led Bush back into the courthouse and into a small office off the main lobby. He closed the door, and they were alone.

"Mr. Darrow," Bush said, "I cannot thank you enough for keeping me from the clutches of that terrible Prosecutor. I don't mind telling you that, while I knew we were in the right from the first, I was a little nervous."

"Mr. Bush, it has been a pleasure having your as a client." He turned askance and looked off into the darkness out the window. Bush swore he could see something in his eyes. A spark, maybe? Darrow's eyes were so dark, smoky. Something was not right. "It was a pleasure defending you, and now it will be a pleasure receiving you into my kingdom."

"Your wha--"

Darrow began to laugh. The laugh was pleasurable and light at first, and then it deepened and vibrated, and grew very, very cold. Bush could see Darrow's teeth growing longer, transforming into fangs. Horns grew from his forehead and tongues of flame began to percolate from his skin.

"You -- you're Satan! I don't understand! You defended me from the charges! You made me a free man!"

In his transformation Lucifer had grown at least a foot, and now loomed over Bush. "You fool. It was so easy. Didn't you listen to the judge? He did not free you. He remanded you to my custody! You are by no means a free man. What you are, my friend, is a slave."

Bush was numb. He tried to talk, but nothing would come out.

Lucifer turned away and started pacing the room. "Time was," he said,"that the strategy I used on you netted us very few souls. Even in the Victorian era, it was difficult to pull off this trick. Back in the old days, people had a little humility, would admit a mistake if challenged, but no matter. These days, the trick works so very, very well."

"What trick?"

Satan walked over to the desk in the room and picked up the newspaper on it. "In hell, we publish an updated edition every ten minutes. Nothing else to do." He tossed the paper to Bush. On the front page was the story of his trial, with the headline, "BUSH COMMENDED TO HELL. THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS WINS AGAIN WITH THE 'NO PENANCE' GAMBIT."

"What is the 'No Penance' gambit?"

"Oh, just one of my many tools. The Prosecutor, you see, was no devil. He was an angel of one of the highest orders, a serphim, I think. Of course, he looked like a devil to you, but that was the trick." With a clawed finger he pointed to the photograph in the paper. On one side was Bush and Darrow. In the picture, Darrow had a serpent's tail trailing from his coat. Bush couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. On the other side of the courtroom, at the Prosecutor's table, was the most beautiful creature Bush had ever seen.

"That is not the creature I saw in the courtroom. He was a beast, a horrible beast!"

"Self-deception. That is my bread and butter, my friend. The angel was accusing you; he was your conscience. You, rather than face your conscience, chose to make him into a devil. The angel was trying to save you. How, you ask? No human is perfect, nor is any human expected to be perfect. You were expected to recognize your imperfections and own up to them. The Prosecutor offered you three chances to admit your error. If you had pled guilty to any of the three changes, even in the most minor way, you would have been sentenced to penance. Penance is the path to purification! If you had admitted your wrong, the road to heaven would have opened up to you.

"Did you do that? No, not you! You placed the blame on everyone else, on circumstance, on your followers, on anyone and everyone but you. Because you did this you severed yourself from forgiveness. There will be no forgiveness for you, not now."

"But, this is impossible. I did not make my defense arguments, you did! Why should I be held responsible for the words of Satan himself!"

Lucifer laughed. "You didn't stop me. If you had hesitated even for a moment, I would have stopped. That is the rule I am bound to: I cannot make an argument my client is not in complete agreement with."

"No ! This cannot be. I have devoted my life to public service."

"Yes, that is what many of your friends said who came before you. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Larry Craig, the entire Supreme Court, Newt Gingrich -- oh, the list is so long. Many of them blamed you for their sins. None of them thought to blame themselves, which is why they are in hell too. You lived the longest, and will be one of the last of your cohort to go in. By the way, I gave Cheney a chance to go back and warn you at the cost of one day of torture. He declined."

There was a knock at the door, and the door opened. Two demons entered carrying a large crate.

"This, my friend, is your slavemaster for the next 91,101 years. She is a spirit that died only a few months before you, but here in hell, time moves a bit differently. She has been tortured for 66.666 years, and is looking forward to returning the favor on a new recruit."

The demons tore open the crate, and a horrible beast leapt out. Her face was vaguely familiar. The beast had a long whip in her left hand, and every few inches the whip bore hooks and spurs intended to dig into flesh. The Slavemaster shrieked, and the sound bore into Bush's eardrums like spikes. She raised the whip over her head.

"Mr. Bush, meet Oprah. Oprah, this is Mr. Bush."

Indifferently, Lucifer turned his back on the pair and strode out of the room. The whip came down with a thunderous clap.

The Blistering: Chapter XIV

 To read this serial novel from the beginning, go here.

The Preferred Blonde 

 
They were in a room, maybe ten by ten, with a concrete floor and corrugated metal walls on two sides, the other two drywall. A single light fixture hung down from the ceiling. Instead of the usual naked incandescent found in most interrogation chambers, it was a white aluminum job from a Swedish furniture store -- quite stylish.

"The metal walls are one thing, but I could probably kick through the drywall," Cardinal whispered in Marsha's ear. "Looks like a divider, not weight-bearing. Easy to punch through."

"It's not the wall I'm worried about," Marsha said. "It's the 9 millimeter the guy on the other side has in his pocket."

"Well, er, yes, I thought of that too. You seem to be catching on to this spy thing pretty well."

"It doesn't seem too complicated to me. From observing you, I'd say the key is to be recklessly aggressive and then do anything you can to keep from getting killed when the bullets fly."

"It sounds better in Sun Tzu's original Chinese."

The door opened and in stepped two heavily armed guards in black fatigues. They moved to each side of the door, and a third character in a gray suit followed.

"Well, if it isn't David Vitter," Cardinal said.

"Cardinal, don't think I got you out of trouble this time. And before I go any further, Ms. Cantrell, I would like to compliment you on your skills as a pilot. It takes considerable acumen to land a 747 in an Iowa cornfield."

"My father was a pilot, and a good teacher. I was just following your directions."

"It was easier to dispose of the plane in the country than at an airport. But enough of that." He turned back to the main object of his disdain. "Cardinal, if it were up to me you would be back in the electric chair, but somebody higher up has other plans for you."

"Are you sure it isn't an unaccounted-for photo I have in my possession?" Cardinal said with a trace of a smile.

Vitter laughed briefly. It was one of those laughs people who never laugh practice in private to perfect. "I don't give a damn about your photos. If I ordered you shot right now and your body dumped in a ditch in Montana, no one would be the wiser."

"I like Montana, living or dead. All right, I'll bite. What am I here for?"

"We know you were headed up here to pay a visit to the Iowa National Testing Service. The girls you ditched in Texas were going to take you there anyway, if you had let them. But you brought along your Kung Fu girlfriend and gave them the slip. You can't do things the easy way, can you? I had a cross country car ride set up with three beautiful women, nice and easy, but you had to trash a hotel room and hijack a plane instead."

"You make it sound like I am such a troublemaker. The plane wasn't my fault. Bad luck that we ran into the ELFs, I guess."

"Now that we have you up here, we intend to deliver you to the Testing Service. The bureau chief here will tell you what he wants from you."

"So the Testing Service has a top secret detention center. How fascinating."

Marsha spoke. "Why would the feds be involved in school testing?"

"Girlie, that's classified."

"Then let me guess," Marsha said. "The Republicans rig the tests for their own kids so they can flood the Ivy League schools with conservatives."

Vitter stammered for a moment before his voice regained its confident edge. "Well, uh, that wouldn't be entirely correct, but . . . . Hell, what do I care? You'll never survive the mission anyway."

Vitter then angrily ordered them out of the room. They were taken at gunpoint to a van, loaded in the back and handcuffed to the door handles. "John," Marsha whispered, leaning over as far as her restrained arm would allow, "Tell me about this photo."

"I worked an assignment in New Orleans a few years back, and a couple of my contacts were in a brothel on Canal Street. Vitter was involved in the job, although he worked for another department. He got hooked up with one of the girls. She was tall, blonde, buxom. The other girls said he liked her a whole lot more than the rest. One day he went in shortly before I got there, and as a joke I busted into the room and snapped a picture."

"I can see how getting involved with a hooker might be a problem for a government agent, but you make it sound like such a big deal. Why would he worry about a photo like that?"

"Turns out his preferred blonde was not a she."

The Cheap Shots Keep Coming

In Louisiana, everyone is talking about the California wildfires, though not always for the reason one might think. Yesterday, Our Dear Leader Bush went to San Diego to visit the disaster victims. In the course of his four hour visit, he told California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger: "It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the statehouse willing to take the lead."

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco took this as a swipe at her response to Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times interprets it this way, and I do too. I suppose an apologist for the White House will argue that this was not the intent, but the jibe was aimed at an unnamed state that suffered a major natural disaster characterized by a poor local response. Does anything else come to mind besides Katrina?

This is simply pathetic, quite low even on the Bush scale for shameless pander. He goes to California, and uses the disaster there to offer another lame excuse for his failure to answer the bell when Katrina hit. This man will stoop to any depth to find someone else to blame for his own shortcomings.

It is not as if the Katrina shot was the only stupid thing he said that day. Here's another one:

There's all kinds of time for historians to compare this response or that response. I'm thinking about people whose lives turned upside down. The experts can try to figure out if the response was perfect.

The experts can figure it out? As the President, the Commander-in-Chief, the Man On Top, who else would be in charge of determining the effectiveness of the response? Pardon me, but I thought the White House was the ultimate authority on the quality of federal response. It is ridiculous for the President to publicly state that he is more concerned with individuals than the big picture. This is exactly the opposite of how it should be. There are thousands of federal employees whose job it is to think about people whose lives turned upside down. There is only one person high enough to judge the quality of the response and to do something about it, and that one person prefers to cede the job to the historians.

From Louisiana's point of view, it is difficult to be anything but dispirited over this turn of events. Katrina was two years ago, and Louisiana, while minding its own business, trying to recover from unprecedented disaster, and gets a cheap shot from California. It is not right that a major disaster elsewhere, nothing to do with us, becomes an occasion for a sucker punch. And that it should come from the President of the United States is the worst part of it all.

When I watch footage of Californians returning to their completely destroyed homes, I feel a great deal of sympathy. Been there, done that. This morning on National Public Radio I listened to one fire victim who explained that he lost every baby picture he ever had of his teenaged son. I know the feeling: This is the unexpected collateral damage. We expect to lose furniture and clothing and appliances -- the big stuff -- but it is the little stuff that really hurts. Even two years later, from time to time I remember a little thing I once had and pause. There was the wooden rocking horse my wife used as a child and she passed on to our children; an antique stethoscope owned by my great grandfather; a photo of my grandfather when he was in college; a bottle of champagne reserved from our wedding day. None of these things will ever come back.

So it pains me to see Katrina once again politicized. When President Bush appeared on national television a week after Katrina, with the St. Louis Cathedral in the background, and promised that New Orleans would be rebuilt, there was great relief. Louisianans know from experience than anything can be polluted by the dirty hands of politicians. Perhaps this time, this one time, we would avoid politics, and rebuilding would promptly begin.

Garbage. We haven't had a politics-free day since, and the President dumped a brand-new layer on top yesterday. There is no end of contempt that I hold for that vile man. He has, to my knowledge, only once set foot in St. Bernard Parish, a place where 68,000 people lost their homes in August of 2005. Sixty-eight thousand. That is a massive loss to merit almost no presidential attention. The California fires, bad as they are, do not compare to that, not even close. St. Bernard voted for Bush in 2000 and again in 2004, and this is the thanks we get.

I know he doesn't want to do anything else for us, not with the expenses of his pet war draining the coffers. If this must be, then let it be, but for God's sake, at least stop the political finger pointing. Some of us who lost our homes are not politicians, and we are tired of being told we are to blame for our losses. 

Privy

Some time ago I was rounding in the hospital, and stopped in on Bernard, an eighty year-old man admitted for what I recall to be heart trouble. Bernard seemed to be doing fairly well. He was a somewhat cranky gentleman, but his wife was all Southern courtesy and sweetness. She smoothed over his rough edges. He would say something grumpy, like “the food here is lousy,” and she would follow up with, “he knows he is getting excellent care.”

I think it was all role playing. Like many couples who had been married fifty-plus years, Bernard and his wife had a way of assuming certain characters. He was the demanding one, the one who fussed if there was not enough ice in his drink, and she was the kind one who effusively thanked the waiter for bringing an entire ice pitcher. In real life I suspect he was not as grouchy as he came off and she not as sweet; but together they worked, yin and yang, good cop/bad cop, to get a lot done without offending anyone. They were gifts, each to the other.

In old age people often allow their sense of privacy to lapse. Elderly people can have a lot of medical problems they may need help with, and it does no good to hide from your neighbors your heart condition and the fact that you take fourteen pills a day. You may one day depend on that neighbor to run to the pharmacy to pick up a refill. They might as well know what’s in the bag.

For this reason, I was not surprised that, when I walked into the room, Bernard and his wife Margaret insisted that a neighbor who was visiting stay while I talked to him about his condition. “Don’t worry about it,” Margaret told her. “You are our friend and we have nothing to hide.”

So I initiated my routine. I asked a few basic questions about how he felt, then examined him. At last I began discussing the labwork and diagnostic testing he had undergone in the past few days. As I spoke, his wife asked a few minor questions here and there. She stood up, still listening and talking, and pulled from the nightstand drawer what appeared to be a container of baby powder. She then leaned over her husband’s bed and neatly folded the sheet over his knees, exposing his body. Next she pulled back his hospital gown, bringing his genitalia to full daylight.

In my medical experience I have no doubt seen everything there is to see, so this was no shock. It did seem unusual, though, that Margaret did this in plain sight of the neighbor. Meanwhile Bernard continued to look at me as if he were getting his shoes shined. Margaret produced a large powder puff and began applying the powder in generous quantities to Bernard’s groin. I surmised that Bernard had a skin condition that required dry conditions at all times, and the powder was for this purpose. Again, not unusual, but typically not done in front of the neighbors.

The neighbor, for her part, assumed the same indifference as Mister and Missus, looking calmly back and forth between my face and Bernard’s, glancing to Margaret’s if she happened to interject.

Eventually I concluded my business, and Margaret concluded hers. But, when I conclude my business I usually put my tools away and always cover up exposed goods; for Margaret this seemed of no concern. Bernard remained aired out, as it were; he even nonchalantly crossed his legs at the ankle after the powdering was over and the spread eagle position was no longer required. Margaret sat calmly in a chair at the bedside, palms resting on her knees, her face registering social engagement.

I shook hands with the neighbor, washed my hands and made for the door. It takes all kinds, I told myself, then bowed my head and silently thanked the Lord that Bernard did not have hemorrhoids.

Goodbye, Democracy, and All That Silly Stuff

People do not seem to be paying  much attention to the confirmation hearings of Michael Mukasey, Alberto Gonzales's possible successor as U.S. Attorney General, but they need to. Mukasey is giving some of the most frightening testimony Washington has seen since the Gonzales hearings.

Mukasey has refused to repudiate Gonzales's argument that torture is acceptable in the interrogation of terrorist suspects. He has also refused to specifically state that waterboarding is illegal.

 Which is, of course, terrible, but it is nothing new. President Bush has always maintained that torture techniques are acceptable for interrogation. His arguments that "we do not torture" are childishly semantic. What good does it do to say America will not torture if the Bush administration leaves the definition of torture open to their free interpretation?

What is worse is Mukasey's willingness to continue to assert that the president has constitutional authorities that Congress is not allowed to limit. Mukasey doesn't simply think Congress shouldn't interfere with presidential perogative, he thinks it can't.  IN a story that aired this morning, NPR's Nina Totenburg quotes Mukasey as saying that "Congress cannot under the Constitution act to trump the Presidential perogative as Commander-in-Chief."

But wait, there's more. From the confirmation hearing, we get this exchange between Sen. Patrick Leahy and Mukasey:

Leahy: Can the President put someone above the law by authorizing illegal conduct?

Mukasey: If by illegal you mean contrary to a statute but within the authority of the President to defend the country, the President is not putting somebody above the law, the President is putting somebody within the law.

In other words, Mukasey believes not only that the President can himself operate outside of th law in defense of the country, he can designate anyone he wants to do the same, and it is all perfectly legal. No law Congress can pass -- none! -- can prevent the President from exceeding the law.

I find the words "putting somebody within the law" very strange. Admittedly I am no lawyer, but to me it seems that a person either acts within the law or outside of the law. The President has no authority that I know of to "put" people in or out. Deciding who breaks the law or not would be the responsibility of a judge. So Mukasey is arguing not only that Congress cannot prevent the President from breaking the law, but also that the President has interpretive authority I thought belonged to the judicial branch.

How far are we from the argument that Congress and the Supreme Court are simply unnecessary?