Bush as Dictator

Columnist Jeff Jacoby examines the phenomenon of Bush as Dictator in his Globe offering yesterday. With multiple citations of over-the-top media commentary and crackpot analysis from erstwhile responsible members of the federal government, Jeff chronicles the evolution of such sentiment while using the plainly and painfully obvious to disabuse of the notion:

President Bush learns the court's ruling in Hamdan has gone against him. A five-justice majority held the military commissions created by the administration to try the Guantanamo detainees are invalid, since they were never authorized by congressional statute. The justices seem to have repudiated Bush's claim that the Constitution invests the president with sweeping unilateral authority in wartime. ``The court's conclusion ultimately rests upon a single ground," Justice Stephen Breyer pointedly notes in a concurrence. ``Congress has not issued the Executive a `blank check.' "

Whereupon Bush says -- what? ``The justices have made their decision; now let them enforce it?" Something even more acidic? Perhaps he repeats a statement he has made previously -- ``I'm the decider, and I decide what is best"?

Not quite. He says he takes the court's decision ``seriously." A few moments later he says it again. And then comes this: ``We've got people looking at it right now to determine how we can work with Congress, if that's available, to solve the problem." There is no disdain. No bravado. No criticism. Just an acknowledg ment that the Supreme Court has spoken and the executive branch will comply.

Some dictator.