"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office."

That is the disquieting lede of a crucially important article in the Boston Globe by Charlie Savage.

Glenn Greenwald builds off:

As has been clear from the beginning, and as Savage notes, the significance of the NSA scandal was never about eavesdropping. Its significance lay in the fact that the President got caught red-handed violating the law on purpose, because he believes he has the power to do so. . . .

. . .

The country intensely debates all sorts of controversial issues (torture, Patriot Act renewal, eavesdropping powers); legislative compromises are reached by the American people through their Congress, often over the objections of the President; the President signs those bills into law -- and then he simply decrees that those laws are irrelevant because he has the power to violate them at will.

. . .

As the Globe article reports with startling clarity, to describe the state of affairs we have in our country is to describe, by definition, a state of authoritarian lawlessness

"Thanks for the suggestions."