From ICite: "You got issues with unchecked power?"

J Dean over at (icite)

"This post features highlights from Bush's press conference today. (The best part is near the bottom). But, first, a little context. From Brian Land's review of The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939 by Richard J. Evan's in yesterday's New York Times Book Review."

Before the war, Evans explains, Germany underwent a brutal and chilling transformation. Behind a facade of legality, the Nazis dismantled the established protections of law. Not satisfied merely to crush a lively if troubled democracy, they used their police state and the mass media to dissolve traditional allegiances. Replacing most forms of organized social life with new, Nazi-themed activities, they left citizens with no place to share heretical thoughts. The result was a nightmare version of a normal modern society, with popular entertainment manipulating public enthusiasms and hatreds, and the government intruding into intimate matters of the mind and body while demanding an end to the coddling of the weak.

Bush today:

As President and Commander-in-Chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article II of the Constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfill it. And after September the 11th, the United States Congress also granted me additional authority to use military force against al Qaeda.
...

Q Democrats have said that you have acted beyond law, and that you have even broken the law. There are some Republicans who are calling for congressional hearings and even an independent investigation. Are you willing to go before members of Congress and explain this eavesdropping program? And do you support an independent investigation?

THE PRESIDENT: We have been talking to members of the United States Congress. We have met with them over 12 times... And we've explained the authorities under which I'm making our decisions, and will continue to do so. (more)