Playing Ostrich, Redux

Should that be re-ducks? Or would that be a fowl pun?

Anyhoo...My old post on "Playing Ostrich" just got linked by the Instapundit, which means thousands of hits already.

Two and a half months after the post was written...but hey, at least a few folks are now going to read it. I think Instapundit picked up on the post via a comment I made on a worth-a-read post by Orin Kerr today in which he examines Bush's claims to Article II powers.

Just to remind regulars, I've been banging away at this goose for a while now. Its all about the assumption that if a Democrat wins the White House they will play nicer than Bush has, in particular where it comes to Bush's claim that the President is the Law.

You are browsing the internets happily when you come across a major-name liberal blogger. That blogger has written a post about the Bush administration's trampling of democracy - be it from secret warrantless spying programs or signing statements or feeding a lazy press propoganda or whatever. However, the blogger has implicitly made the assumption that the kind of Republican-Lite types who make up the elite of the Democrats and who are most likely to ever occupy the Oval Office wouldn't do exactly the same. (Nor would the elitists who make up the top levels of the Republican party, mind you. Where's my third party option?)

You then challenge said blogger to come up with evidence for their assumption or to 'fess up that what they are really doing is "using the force" (trans - shutting your eyes tight and hoping like hell). You point out that the issue is too important, after two Bush terms, to leave to guesswork and wishful thinking. "We the people" need to know.

You say that there is actually a way for those concerned about the future of American democracy to pressure those candidates to pledge a rollback of the King as President meme rather than using it as a useful precedent. It is, quite simply, to ask the damn question they seem so afraid to ask:

Will you, if elected, pledge to roll back the Bush vision of total Presidential executive power?

So this post is by way of an invite for those interested to join the debate either in comments on this post or on the original.

But keep it nice, eh? We can leave the hunting accidents to the Vice President.