Meet David Addington

Jane Mayer, in The New Yorker, has a lengthy article on David Addington, the BushCo chief thug whom she reports is referred to as “Cheney’s Cheney,” or, less charitably, as “Cheney’s hit man.” Mayer goes into considerable detail describing how many of the monumentally hideous legal abominations advanced by the Bush administration were conceived and orchestrated by Addington, over frequent objections of - and often by keeping them secret from - dissenting administration officials who had purview. The kangaroo court "military commissions" now rejected by the Supreme Court, insistence on torture, total disregard of proven detainee innocence, use of presidential signing statements to officially unofficially "veto" undesired bits of legislation, and NSA phone wiretapping are all David Addington's contribution to America's historical legacy. Mayer doesn't say it, but there's a word which fairly accurately encapsulates the founding premise of Addington's legal doctrine of supreme and unquestioned presidential authority: Führerprinzip.