From the Forum “Undoing Bush”
No one has captured George W. Bush’s understanding of constitutional law more precisely or presciently than Richard M. Nixon, who famously (and incorrectly) told David Frost in 1977, “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Many hoped this theory had seen its definitive demise with Nixon’s own fall, but Bush and his compatriots clearly have a different view—Dick Cheney in particular has long argued that his old boss’s forced resignation set the stage for an unwarranted evisceration of executive power. We should not be surprised, then, that…