Original sin

Publius nails it on the head:

By now, it’s clear that the administration makes a lot of bad choices on a wide array of seemingly unrelated matters. When you scratch below the surface though, some common themes arise. To borrow from Libby’s love letter to Miller, Bush’s errors turn in clusters because their roots connect them.

One of these common “roots” is the assumption that the executive branch gets to be the final arbiter of the limits of its own power. This single assumption ties together a number of the administration’s most troubling policies. For instance, according to the administration, it alone decides how detainees will be treated in wartime. It alone decides what constitutes torture. It alone decides who is deemed an “enemy combatant.” It alone decides who will be wiretapped. It alone decides whether it will follow the requirements of the Patriot Act. It alone decides whether America can legally go to war. It alone decides when documents are declassified. It alone decides when the Geneva Convention should be followed.

The tie that binds each and every one of these positions is that, in each one, the executive alone gets the final say on the scope of its power.

Although the “final arbiter” assumption explains a lot, it doesn’t explain everything. In fact, I think the “final arbiter” assumption is itself a symptom of an even more fundamental and flawed assumption held by the administration. And that assumption is the unyielding certitude of its own correctness and goodness. That arrogance, to me, is original sin of the administration – and the source of its most disturbing and often disastrous policies.