Interesting column by Sidney Blumenthal on how Musharraf has lerned a thing or two from Bush and Cheney.

Musharraf’s coup spectacularly illustrates the “Bush effect”. His speech of November 3, explaining his seizure of power, is among the most significant and revealing documents of this new era in its cynical exploitation of the American example. In his speech, Musharraf mocks and echoes Bush’s rhetoric. Tyranny, not freedom, is on the march. Musharraf appropriates the phrase “judicial activism” – the epithet hurled by American conservatives at liberal decisions of the courts since the Warren-led Supreme Court issued Brown versus Board of Education, which outlawed segregation in schools – and makes it his own. This term “judicial activism” has no other source. It is certainly not a phrase that originated in Pakistan. “The judiciary has interfered, that’s the basic issue,” Musharraf said.

Indeed, under Bush, the administration has equated international law, the system of justice, and lawyers with terrorism. In the March 2005 national defense strategy, this conflation of enemies became official doctrine: “Our strength as a nation state will continue to be challenged by those who employ a strategy of the weak using international fora, judicial processes, and terrorism.”