Demagogue

I'm just now going through a few back issues of The New Yorker, and I found an interesting article called "The Hidden Power" in the July 3 edition (the article's not accessible online). It profiles David Addington, whom the magazine identifes as Vice President Cheney's chief of staff "and his longtime principal legal adviser."

Addington, writes The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, "has played a central role in shaping the Administration's legal strategy for the war on terror." And the article includes the following quotes about Addington and/or the legal strategy he helped develop for the White House to assert unprecedented legal authority:

1) "It's Addington. He doesn't care about the Constitution."

2) "[Bush has] said that there are no restraints on his ability, as he sees it, to collect intelligence, to open mail, to commit torture, and to use electronic surveillance. If you used the President's reasoning, you could shut down Congress for leaking too much. ... he could kill someone in Lafayette Park if he wants! It's got the sense of Louis XIV: 'I am the State.'"

3) "The Administration's lawyers are nuts on this issue."

4) "There is no [legal adviser for this Admin.] of legal stature, certainly no one like Bork, or Scalia, or Elliot Richardson, or Archibald Cox. It's frightening. No one knows the Constitution — certainly not Cheney.”

These are pretty damning statements, but what makes them especially damning is that all four of these quotes are attributed to Republicans and/or conservatives — (in order) Colin Powell, Bruce Fein, Richard A. Epstein and Fein again.