And while we’re on the subject of Attorney-General Gonzales, here’s a sobering piece by Joyce Appelby and Gary Hart…

Relying on legal opinions from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and Professor John Yoo, then working at the Justice Department, Bush has insisted that there can be no limits to the power of the commander-in-chief in time of war. More recently the president has claimed that laws relating to domestic spying and the torture of detainees do not apply to him. His interpretation has produced a devilish conundrum.

President Bush has given Commander-in-Chief Bush unlimited wartime authority. But the “war on terror” is more a metaphor than a fact. Terrorism is a method, not an ideology; terrorists are criminals, not warriors. No peace treaty can possibly bring an end to the fight against far-flung terrorists. The emergency powers of the president during this “war” can now extend indefinitely, at the pleasure of the president and at great threat to the liberties and rights guaranteed us under the Constitution…

Puzzle: this essay was published on George Mason University’s History News Network. A few minutes ago I looked to see what were the current most popular queries on search engines and was puzzled to discover that “George Mason University” was second only to ‘Tiger Woods”. Could it be that people had heard about the Appleby/Hart piece and were hunting for it? Curious…