I was rehashing the run up to the war in Iraq for a recently converted Bushinista friend of mine. (Would you believe that up until this monday, he STILL thought Iraq=9/11?)
As I was describing how 9/11 created a situation where the president could basically get away with anything he wanted, his 14 year old son (Brad) pipes up “You mean like Senator Palpatine”
Brad then goes on to describe how (other than the entire, Senatort Palpatine was complicit in the creation of the threat that created his wartime powers, although Brad (being young and imaginative) imagined all sorts of conspiracies, his favorite seemed to have to do with deliberately maintaining chaos in the Middle East) I was basically describing the plotline to Star Wars.
I told him that Bush was not really like Senator Palpatine but it made me wonder.
Then he brought up 1984 (a book I read ages ago and that he read just recently), and drew a few analogies there as well.
All of this left me wondering two things, how the heck didn’t I recognize the analogies before this and how the heck did my friend get fooled for so long when his son saw everything so clearly.
The current effort to get the laws re-written to permit more agressive “questioning” of suspected terrorist detainees reminds me of Palpatine’s line in The Phantom Menace: “I will make it legal”, especially the way he says it with such utter disgust at any who would dare question his dastardly plans.
You can’t really tell from just that; he might have been sliding his feet on a carpet. Or be an X-Man. See? There are any number of other explanations.
“These are not the pocketknives you are looking for.”
He and his supporters attitude that he and he alone determines what is legal and what he can do pretty much amounts to claiming the office ( or trying to ), without the name.
Given his past record of success, he’ll burn down the White House.
Wow, you have a quote for that from him or his supporters? Cool! (If not, you’re blowing smoke.)
Regardless, I’ll still only start worrying if he actually makes the declaration, or meets one of my other four criteria. (I’m still hoping for the lightsaber.)
There’s Bush’s famous “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I’m the dictator” quote, but I’ll grant that he was kidding. You would need a more nuanced reading of the opinions of Cheney, I. Lewis Libby, and perhaps David Addington most of all, to get a sense of what they think the President’s powers really are. And they DO have a more expansive vision of what the President should be able to do than a lot of other people. Here’s a New Yorker article about Addington, if you’re curious. I would pull some quotes, but I have to catch a train.