The Rule of Law or The Power of The President?

Noted conservative professor at harvard Univercity Harvey C. Mansfield, wrote an Op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Case for the Strong Executive, which lays the foundation for modern mainstream conservatism. The article was an honest account of the theory behind the Bush presidency and the larger conservative movement.

The Nixon Doctrine. "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

Glenn Greenwald at salon.com summarized Mansfield's article: [R]eading Mansfield has real value for understanding the dominant right-wing movement in this country. Because he is an academic, and a quite intelligent one, he makes intellectually honest arguments, by which I mean that he does not disguise what he thinks in politically palatable slogans, but instead really describes the actual premises on which political beliefs are based.

And that is Mansfield's value; he is a clear and honest embodiment of what the Bush movement is. In particular, he makes crystal clear that the so-called devotion to a "strong executive" by the Bush administration and the movement which supports it is nothing more than a belief that the Leader has the power to disregard, violate, and remain above the rule of law. And that is clear because Mansfied explicitly says that. And that is not just Mansfield's idiosyncratic belief. He is simply stating -- honestly and clearly -- the necessary premises of the model of the Omnipotent Presidency which has taken root under the Bush presidency.

Could you imagine the furor that would occur, if this was written by Hugo Chavez?
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