ENABLING ACT PRECURSOR

Described here by our anti-friends Bill Frist and particularly Lindsey Graham:

"The court said that military commissions would be proper if Congress blessed those commissions -- that the president by himself could not do this, that he had to come to Congress and get the Congress to bless the military tribunal." Graham said.

"I agree with that. I think it would be better off if the Congress and the White House work together to pass a statute that would allow these terrorists to be tried in a military court."

That's the Bush/neo-theocon plan: don't dismantle the Congress or the Supreme Court or anything. Leave them all in place, but make sure they're filled with collaborators that will do what you want. And since the constitutional institutions won't be done away with to the untrained eye, it will sound crazy to most people when people point out how the Supreme Court or the Congress have basically been wiped away. The unwashed will think "No, we still a Court and a Congress--they pass laws and decide cases." It's beginning to happen...