What goes around comes around. The right wing, particularly the pro-Bush dead-enders (that 28% or so who still think Dubya did a great job) had no problem with near-dictatorial executive power as long as that power was held by a faux-Christian hillbilly with a Texas accent. But now all that dangerous authority is vested in the hands of BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, the Anti-Christ himself!
I remember during the Bush years, I used to argue with my Republican friends about the torture and detention policies that Bush implemented. One of my main points was that you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube...once you cross that line, the President always has those powers, whether you like the man or not.
During the Bush years, the President claimed the power to wiretap your phones if he thought it could save American lives, to arrest and imprison anyone for any period of time with no lawyer and no trial if he thought they were planning to hurt Americans, and to torture them to death if he thought they knew something that could save American lives.
Well the tables have turned, and there's a Democratic president in the White House now. Suddenly, there is an awful lot of fear of persecution spreading among the right wing. Some militia leaders have called for violence, rebellion, even assassination. Democratic offices have been targeted. American lives are at risk. I guess Obama might just have to use all those wonderful powers that Bush claimed for himself and that all the Republicans supported.
Certainly, I don't think the President should be tapping conservatives' phones, or arresting Americans without trial, or torturing them, etc. If Obama ever did that I would become one of the biggest Obama haters on the planet. But I think this should demonstrate to everyone who supported Bush WHY you don't let ANY president claim that kind of power, even if you're scared about terrorism. You might not always like the guy who holds those powers.
You can't trust any President with unconstitutional and dangerous levels of power just because you like him or just because you're frightened of some mysterious people from across the world.
This is why the surveillance-and-torture state authorities of the President should be addressed by Congress and permanently banned, and why the people who created and justified and used those powers in the Bush years should be prosecuted, disbarred, and put in prison.
Otherwise, Obama might just have to ship all the Tea Partiers off to Guantanamo Bay any day now. Of course, I can't think of a more effective way to torture all the inmates who are already in Gitmo than to introduce them to their new roommates from the Tea Party Express.