Hacktacular!

Shorter Assrocket, Michelle Malkin, and Confederate Yankee: The real scandal about the President conducting warrantless searches of American citizens is that someone found out about it.

To state the obvious, this policy should be indefensible to anybody but the most egregious Bush fluffers. The national security justifications are absurd–how hard do you think it is to get a warrant if you have any reason to believe that you’re monitoring terrorist activity? Atrios is right, of course, that this represents a classic test for coservertarians; I concede the point of commenter Pithlord that how you define libertarianism is up for debate, but I’m going to say that “boundless, arbitrary executive power” is not compatible with any version. (Nor, of course, is it compatible with any kind of liberal democracy.) But, for me, the consevertarians who enthusiastically support Sam “4th Amendment? What’s that?” Alito, or Al “the Magna Carta is a dangerous piece of judicial activism” Gonzales have already failed the test. There’s nothing the Bush Administration–who is, after all, getting its advice from John “seems to be actively seeking the Carl Schmitt Memorial “Anything Goes” award” Yoo– is doing here it hasn’t asserted the authority to do, and that many of its appointments to crucial legal positions have always been willing to go along with. This is the nature of the Bush Administration, and this has been apparent to anyone but the most clueless hack for years; this is just one more data point.

…must-read post from Hilzoy.