Before I sign off for the holiday, I’d like to point out that I’m not the only one who thought the point about Bush not being the Commander in Chief of the country, which I made recently, was germane. Behold:

“Do I have the legal authority to do this?” Bush said at a White House news conference. “The answer is absolutely. . . . The legal authority is derived from the Constitution as well as the authorization of force by the United States Congress.”

In the 2001 congressional resolution Bush cited, that authorized the use of military force in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, calls for the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed or aided the terrorist attacks.”

But Temple Law School Dean Robert Reinstein, former chief of general litigation at the Justice Department, said Bush’s arguments don’t hold water.

“Being commander-in-chief of the military doesn’t make him commander-in-chief of the nation,” Reinstein said, referring to a 1952 Supreme Court ruling that said President Truman did not have the right to seize steel mills during a strike that threatened production needed during the Korean War.

“The president is putting himself above the law by this argument that he is commander-in-chief,” Reinstein said. “We are not talking about operations of the military abroad. We are talking about a law that was designed to protect people’s civil liberties.”

[Link]

See, I’m not such a doofus after all. So there.