Newspaper: Bush an "Imperial" President

This scathing critique of Bush comes from the International Herald Tribune:

Observing President George W. Bush in action lately, we have to wonder if he actually watched the election returns in November, or if he was just rerunning the 2002 vote on his TiVo.

That year, the White House used the fear of terrorism to scare American voters into cementing the Republican domination of Congress. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney then embarked on an expansion of presidential power chilling both in its sweep and in the damage it did to the constitutional system of checks and balances.

And they get it right on the issue of the recently passed law translated by the President to allow him to open your mail:

The law is clear on this. A warrant is required to open Americans' mail under a statute that was passed to stop just this sort of abuse.

Even the British understand that its wrong to go through someone's mail without a court order.

And this is a strong allegation:

Mohamed was a target of another favorite Bush administration practice: "extraordinary rendition," in which foreign citizens are snatched off the streets of their hometowns and secretly shipped to countries where they can be abused and tortured on behalf of the American government. Mohamed has said he was tortured in Morocco until he signed a confession that he conspired with Padilla.

The coup de grace:

The administration's assault on some of the nation's founding principles continues unabated. If the Democrats were to shirk their responsibility to stop it, that would make them no better than the Republicans who formed and enabled these policies in the first place.