My hunch is that the administration continues to defend illegal wiretaps, torture, and their other nefarious activities not because they believe them to be legitimate and effective tools, but because they are scared stiff that the covers are coming off all of what has transpired on their watch, and they fear prosecution.

Not to pick nits with you but you might want to qualify that broad, general statement about "only four great showdowns" over executive abuse. There have, in fact, been many more. Those earlier conflagrations of the 18 and 1900's helped to shape the way power was intended to be balanced while correcting, sometimes abruptly, the Executive's misperception that it was without accountability and above the law.

One of the first best examples of a direct challenge to the Executive was the Amistad case, available on line at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell. Yes, I know they made a movie of it but just read the decision itself. It soundly thrashes Van Buren for interfering in the judicial process by placing himself as the law, rather than above it.

dogsoldier 

Mark, your statement "I think it's quite likely that we will soon learn that the NSA domestic surveillance program involved much more than just tracking people who received calls from known al Qaeda suspects, something that I certainly wouldn't object to." is part and parcel of the problem we face. The Constitution is very clear that searches without a warrant are prohibited, and it doesn't say "except al Qaeda suspects". That constitution is the bedrock of our government, and we absolutely have to follow it. The oath of office a president takes, per the constitution, requires him to swear to uphold the constitution, not to protect us from boogymen. We need to clearly establish that any president, from any party, who grossly violates that oath of office is automatically impeached and convicted. Nothing less will save our form of government.

Having paid sycophants make up extra-constitutional powers for the president - as part of the war on obesity, for example - cannot ever be allowed to go unchallenged.

I see all of the Administration's activities falling in the Supreme Court's lap one of these days.  With each passing day, the White House's claim that it holds raw, unchecked power gets bolder.  Here's what the President wrote while signing McCain's anti-torture bill:

The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.

As Mary Lederman writes, this translates roughly to: "I reserve the constitutional right to waterboard when it will "assist" in protecting the American people from terrorist attacks."

In other words: this law is worth about as much as FISA.

In Spring 2004, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court construed the 2001 Congressional Resolution authorizing force against al-Qaida as giving the President the right to name American citizens as "enemy combatants" and hold them without trial rather than charging them with treason (the plurality held that detainees were entitled to some sort of judicial review, however).  This ruling provided the Court with considerable political cover, since its reading saw the Congressional Resolution as a grant of power from Congress to the President.  In other words, Congress gave the President the authority to name Hamdi an enemy combatant.  This is altogether different from saying that the President has the right to overrule Congress based on his inherant powers at commander-and-chief.

When the NSA story first broke, the Administration went back to the well with the Congressional Resolution, claiming that the President was given the authority to spy by Congress in 2001, through the Resolution.  This rationale was generally scoffed at in the political arena and jouralistic circles, however, and soon the Administration stopped bringing it up.  Dropping the Congressional Resolution argument may make sense politically, but it will have repercussions when the Supreme Court is forced to decide on these issues.

These days, what we're seeing is an Administration that routinely cites the "inherant" wartime powers of the presidency while justifying its actions.  At some point, the Supreme Court will need to tell the nation whether this is a valid argument.  The NSA program, in particular, seems headed for the Court as terrorism suspects attack the evidence being used against them at trial.

How will the Court rule?  In the recent past, I argued that the Court would like to give the President whatever powers he wants by relying -- again -- on the 2001 Congressional Resolution.  In other words, replay Hamdi.  This course of action might be intellectually dishonest in the extreme, but it would be the best way for the Court to avoid a constitutional crisis, since it maintains the illusion that Congress gave the President the authority to conduct all of these activities.  Thus, the Court could the dodge the question of whether the President can overrule Congress whenever he wants.

Each time the White House cites its "inherant authority" argument, the Court's ability to rely on the 2001 Resolution becomes more difficult.  As much as the Court wants to avoid a constitutional crisis, it must also worry about its own credibility, which will be undermined if it pretends the 2001 Resolution is the Adminitration's rationale when it clearly isn't.  By repeating, over and over, that the President has the inherant authority to violate federal law, the White House is destroying the Supreme Court's ability to accomodate the President using the easier tool: the 2001 Resolution.  

It's impossible to know how the Court will come down on the question of the President's "executive authority," particularly if Sam Alito is on the Court when the question arrives.  Justice Thomas would certainly be on the Administration's side, and everything we've heard about Alito indicates he'd be right there with Thomas.  Scalia and Stevens would almost certainly reject the White House's interpretation, and it's hard to believe that Souter, Breyer, and Ginsburg would support the President here either.  Even the Chief Justice is a bit a question mark, despite his love for Executive Authority.  The best man at the Chief Justice's wedding, Michael Luttig, wrote a stinging rebuke in response to the Administration's request that the 4th Circuit vacate its previous Padilla holding earlier this month.  Would Roberts pen a similar rejection if he disagrees with the President?  Kennedy, too, is a wildcard.

In sum, the numbers suggest that the President will have a hard time convincing the Court that his view of "inherant authority" is an accurate reading of the constitution.  But this must be balanced against the practical reality: the Supreme Court does not want to get in a head-to-head showdown with the Executive Branch if can possibly avoid it.  By pressing the "inherant authority" argument so vocally in public, however, the White House may be forcing the Court to rule on an issue it would have gone to great lengths to avoid (and such lengths may have included giving the Administration everything it wanted using the vehicle of the 2001 Congressional Resolution)...

In the past, Justice O'Conner always asserted herself in times like this.  She is the master of the compromise; the queen of making nobody happy, but outraging no one.  If she is no longer around when this issue boils over, I truly wonder about the result.

I'll correct the post to clarify that I mean that I don't object to the searches with a warrant, which was the point I was trying to make, not that I would find the NSA program unobjectionable if limited to al qaeda.

Research Operation Mongoose and see how the CIA/mob plot to kill Fidel changed its target to JFK after the Bay of Pigs.

Bush said after the election "I earned some capital.  I've earned capital in this election - and I'm going to spend it..." 

Its going to be an interesting 2006, following Bush through the yard sale of executive priviledge justifications and seeing just where he invests his capital.

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