WP: Bush declares himself above the law
No, I'm not kidding.

For those of you who haven't been following the case of the fired attorneys, Congress recently subpoenaed several former White House aides to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about their role and their knowledge of the actions of others. The President ordered the former aides not to testify, citing an executive privilege. Congress replied that he has no right to do such a thing, and started criminal contempt proceedings against the people who refused to appear.

Today, the administration made an interesting reply: they argued that "Congress has no power to force a U.S. attorney to pursue contempt charges in cases... in which the president has declared... executive privilege." The idea is that the Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, and so if the President has declared something to be the policy of that branch (e.g., claiming executive privilege) the DoJ cannot be forced by anyone else to act contrary to branch policy.

David B. Rifkin, who worked in the Justice Department and White House counsel's office under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, praised the position and said it is consistent with the idea of a "unitary executive." In practical terms, he said, "U.S. attorneys are emanations of a president's will." And in constitutional terms, he said, "the president has decided, by virtue of invoking executive privilege, that is the correct policy for the entire executive branch."

Got that? It means that the entire executive branch, including all prosecuting attorneys, are "emanations of a president's will," and therefore can never be caused to act against said will -- and therefore, a president can never be prosecuted for an act of his own will.

Which is to say, the official position of this administration is that the president is ipso facto above the law.

I wonder if they consider this reasoning to apply to future presidents as well?

Edit:

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Another little oddity.
Yesterday, I was listening to the radio, (transcript and recording) and heard Gen. David Petraeus (who's acting as the President's mouthpiece, not the Army's) defending how well we're doing in Iraq. There were a few interesting changes in the official administration line:

• The main source of our problems isn't sectarian violence, it's al Qaeda. News to me, and apparently news to US forces too; CIA director Michael Hayden recently listed them as the fifth biggest issue, behind the local insurgency, sectarian strife, criminality, and general anarchy. (Good CSM article here)


• He said that it's far too soon to be asking for benchmarks about the "surge," and that benchmarks aren't that meaningful anyway, because the surge has only had one month to operate in so far. That's odd; I recall the surge first being ordered this January, and the 30,000 additional troops were deployed in February. (Detailed order of battle; the new units were the 2nd BDE 82nd Airborne, 1st BDE 34th Infantry, 4th BDE 1st Infantry; they were followed by 3rd BDE 3rd Infantry in March, 4th Stryker BDE 2nd Infantry in April, 2nd BDE 3rd Infantry in May, as well as extension of deployments for various Marine units (including the 15th MEU), and deploying the USS Stennis group) So how exactly does that translate as only having had a month to prove it? (Answer: Because we said so. This administration has a disturbing tendency to make public statements that directly contradict their previous statements, and state that what they say now has always been their policy.)


• And in related amusement, Lt. Gen. Odierno gave an interesting briefing where he gave as evidence for how good things are in Baghdad that he walked a thousand meters there.
  
  Just to get this straight: Several months after we deploy 30,000 additional troops and move troops from all of Iraq into Baghdad (and thus cede control of more land back to civil war and insurgency), a 3-star general visits (with all of the attendant security precautions), and with a full armed escort, can walk a full thousand meters on foot through the defended area without being shot. This constitutes a significant improvement in the conditions in Iraq and evidence that our strategy is working.
  
  Working at what, exactly, I'm not sure, but it's apparently working.

I think I need to start playing a game with the news reports. I call it, "Kafka or Orwell?"

Edit: Here, let's play.

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One more...
Hold on, I just realized that the past few news stories may give Orwell an unfair advantage. So here's one more (although it's good news, relatively speaking): The (very conservative and usually government-friendly) 4th circuit court of appeals in DC ruled today that the government must allow Guantánamo detainees who are challenging their detention to see the evidence against them. No formal response yet from the administration, but I'll give you one guess as to what it will be.

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