with a capital g

I can't begin to express my horror at a recent, relatively unmentioned, bit of political news from this past week: Bush signed a directive giving the presidential office the ability to control all actions of the federal government in the event of a national crisis-"any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." The directive appears to grant the president full powers without any congressional oversight. In other words, goodbye checks and balances.

Am I dreaming? Is this the newest Star Wars trilogy, with Senator Palpatine carefully plotting and manipulating his way towards galactic domination? This is complete lunacy! The entire Constitutional basis for our democratic republic has just been flushed down the drain. Our founding fathers probably aren't just rolling in their graves; I'll bet they're rising from the graves to escape to Canada or back to England.

I've said before that, despite his unapologetic tramping of civil rights, I believe Bush has still had the best interests of the country in mind. He's just been misguided in how he goes about it. From here on out, I'm throwing that opinion out the window. There is no reason anyone can give me that would justify such a move as this. Maybe Bush decided that eight years won't been enough and he'd like to keep his position. In my mind, the only explanation is pure greed, plain and simple.

If you want to dismiss this all as a bunch of liberal hyperbole, check out this summary of the story, from a conservative news source. See how much it resembles this liberal source.

To stick with the Star Wars theme: I have a bad feeling about this.