(March/​April 2006)

Since the start of the war on terror, the Bush administration has singlemindedly advanced the view that, in time of war, the president is the law, and no statute, no constitutional barrier, no coordinate branch of the U.S. government can stand in the president’s way when, by his lights, he is acting to preserve national security. Bush administration officials have argued

– that the president has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as “enemy combatants,” strip them of any constitutional protection, and hold them for the duration of the war on terror;
– that the president has the power to ignore validly enacted statutes prohibiting war crimes if he believes those statutes impede his prosecution of the war on terror; and
– that the president has the power to launch invasions of other countries at his discretion, without so much as a by-yourleave to Congress.

In a 1977 interview with David Frost, Richard Nixon described his view of the president’s national security authority: “Well, when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” In the arguments it has advanced, both publicly and privately, for untrammeled executive power, the Bush administration comes perilously close to that view.