Bil Bartlett
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He was a thankfully dead political philosopher hereinafter referred as LS. He is deeply involved however, because it was his theories of modern state which were something like a combination of Nietzsche and Machiavelli that were behind John Yoo and other neocon lawyers in the WH and DoD who set up this secret government within government.
The primary feature of Yoo's theory is unconstitutionally broad powers self-assumed by the chief executive, without foundation in the constitution, current law, legislation, or Congressional approval. Remember Yoo's justification was a theory, an argument, and was also not a law and was never argued before a court, so it isn't present in case law.
The secondary feature of this coup or government within government was the conduct and actions taken under the presumed powers. This is the rotten fruit from the rotten tree. They created a shadow army of private corporate mercenaries who were answerable to no legal authority for their assignments, actions, and conduct. As employees their only accounting comes from within the corporation where basically they can be fired. Currently Blackwater or xe is arguing in a civil law suit that contractors can not be sued, because they were working for the government. A judge noted in the original piece that Doug posted just threw out that argument.
The contractors were (are) run by the military intelligence apparatus set-up by Cheney and Rumsfeld. This military intelligence system itself is also not answerable to congressional oversight, and proactively hidden behind a cloak of national security. This is precisely why Cheney and Rumsfeld re-created a new CIA in the Pentagon, so they could more effectively use national security as the pretext to keep its activities hidden with the excuse of national security or on-going military operations---that if revealed would endanger our troops, etc. Also according to Risen, the VP and Secretary of DoJ didn't like Tenet director of CIA and didn't want to be exposed to the tighter scrutiny that Congress had over CIA activities.
The executive branch defied congressional power of subpoena and review of executive branch activities many times over the last eight years. The only reason that defiance was not turned into an overt unconstitutional act actionable by impeachment was because the committees never issued a contempt of congress citation against executive branch officials who failed to appear when requested and failed to supply documents requested.
Obama is following the same path. I certainly hope he doesn't become as arrogant, tyrannical, and defiant of law as Bush. I think he is taking the stall, foot dragging, and limit the investigation to controllable parameters that Nixon first tried in the preamble to Watergate, where the trial of the DNC Cubans and Liddy, or Watergate burglers languished for months under Judge Sirica---until Sirica got fed up with WH and government stall tactics.
That's were I think Obama is headed. I suppose I have to remind everybody that if a president stalls a federal or state judge or congresss in completing their requests, that is a violation of the oath of office. Remember the oath says,
``I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.''
Stalling a judge is not what's call faithful execution of office and is not to the president's best ability, and doesn't preserve, protect or defend the Constitution. This oath appears in Article II, Section I of the Constitution. So failure to adhere to this oath, is itself an unconstitutional act.
Now I may not be an old country lawyer from South Carolina, but I think we have a constitutional crisis on our hands. This bullshit is still going on. Here is a video dated from April 2009:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=just%20an%20old%20country% 20lawyer%20from%20south%20carolina&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#q=asby +lond*&hl=en&emb=0