The Tan Fuhrer

Well, word "on the street" is that we're looking at a historic election this year, with forces of hope and change set to sweep away the ancien regime, and inaugurate Barack Obama as the once and future king. I mean, next president.

For me, this brings to mind the phrase that Jeff Cooper used to use to refer to the right Rev. Jesse Jackson---"the tan Fuhrer." Jeff Cooper was a Marine officer in WW2, holder of a master's degree in history from Stanford, and chief promulgator of the "New Technique" of handgun shooting. I'm pretty sure everyone knows who Jesse Jackson is.

While the election has not been held, it sure looks like Barack Obama is set to be the tan Fuhrer for real and for true.

What? I'm calling the Democratic nominee for president a Fuhrer? Well, that kind of goes with the office, these days. As someone once remarked, "It'd be easier if this was a dictatorship, as long as I'm the dictator."

For the last eight years, the Republican party and Republican activists have enthusiastically supported the expansion of presidential authority under the rubric of the "unitary executive." The Republican party and Republican activists have fervently argued in favor of "signing statements" wherein the president signs a bill into law while reserving the right to ignore those parts of the law that he finds unduly restrictive of his "inherent authority" or disadvantageous for the good of the nation. For six years, the Republican party and Republican activists have argued that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by the legislative branch back in September of 2001 established a de facto and de jure regime under which the president could do, well, just about anything he wanted to. You know, arrest US citizens without 4th Amendment protections. Use "enhanced interrogation techniques" (i.e., torture) on foreigners at home and abroad, and on US nationals, at home and abroad. Wage war on such nations, states, peoples and groups as he finds planned, authorized, committed or aided the attacks of 9/11.

(Note: I really wish that I could have typed, in place of "the Republican party and Republican activists" the phrase "conservatives." However, none of that was conservative.)

Well, shazam, as Gomer Pyle used to say.

Here's a news flash: that power is still going to be in the executive come January 20 of 2009.

In the event that Barack Obama does become president, I imagine that the Republican party will rediscover its enthusiasm for a restrained executive, will rediscover its belief that legislation ought to undergird exercises of presidential authority, and in short will rediscover that actions have consequences.

Good luck with that. You did it to yourselves, caught up in the heat of the moment, convinced of the righteousness of your cause, convinced that electoral politics, like international politics, had arrived at the end of history. You have sown the wind, and now you will reap the whirlwind.

Remember, as Bill Clinton once said, "You can't love your country if you hate your government." Hey, hasn't that been an operative meme over the last eight years as well?

If I did not look forward to the day when my daughters would be able to read over this blog and see what their old man had said, I would dip into my reservoir of truly explicit USMC language and express my true opinion of the Republican party, and Republican activists.