The Unitary Executive is going to be the downfall of our governament if it isn’t stopped. I saw this on reddit this morning:

President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the
Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.

In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.

But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency’s 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section “in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.”

This part at the end was disturbing too:

Bush, for example, said he’d disregard a requirement that the director of the
Federal Emergency Management Agency must have at least five years experience and “demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security.”

His rationale was that it “rules out a large portion of those persons best qualified by experience and knowledge to fill the office.”

Yeah, because it worked out so well when they hired the last unqualified guy to run FEMA. Well, they didn’t learn anything from Vietnam so why should we expect them to learn from Katrina? The one guy they had that had learned something from Vietnam (Powell Doctrine), they kicked out.