While I was away, George W. Bush proclaimed himself dictator. That's not a joke, and it's not an exaggeration. In his "signing statement" for the Patriot Act extension, Dubya claimed the right to unilaterally set aside any portions of the bill that he finds inconvenient, no matter what Congress or the courts have to say about it --- thus himself making explicit what was already explicit in his functionaries' talk of wiretaps, that he won't recognize any limits on his power at all. As Glenn Greenwald puts it (via Atrios),

...the Administration has seized the power of Congress to make the laws, they have seized the power of the judiciary to interpret the laws, and they execute them as well. They have consolidated within themselves all of the powers of the government, particularly with regard to national security. This situation is, of course, exactly what Madison warned about in Federalist 47; it really is the very opposite of everything our Government is intended to be.

If Dubya hasn't yet pulled all the same crap as the scenery-chewing dictator in the movie, "V for Vendetta", it's not because he thinks he can't, but rather because he hasn't found it to be necessary, in his own sole judgment.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been getting bombarded by phone calls from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which I was fobbing off with my usual, "too busy, not now." I finally told one of them what I really think: that if the Democratic Senators don't have the guts to get behind Feingold's censure resolution --- particularly the ones who did vote to censure Clinton over the Monica "scandal" --- then I don't have any money for them. Bad as it may have been that Clinton was the first President in our entire history to have consensual sex with a woman who was not his wife, this is even worse than that.

I'm pleased to say that my protest has accomplished something. The phone calls have entirely stopped.