I kind of sort of wish I had the courage to say these things myself, instead of referring to others, but Nat Hentoff's article in this week's Village Voice about the power the administration seeks, and is getting, to designate American citizens as enemy combatants, makes all the e-mails I get about whether so-and-so can beat a sitting President, any sitting President, just so-much eye wash. It makes all the e-mails I get about how the Foxies want a limited government, just so much hog wash. You can trust Bush, and you can trust Ashcroft, and you can trust Rumsfeld, and you can trust Ridge, but can you trust the guys who come next, and can you assume that we will, at the split second we want to, have the power to make these new laws go away.

Power can always, always, create a war-like crisis. Can be my guy just as easily. Probably won't be though.

(Still to come --- in seeming contradiction --- why we like big government)