The U.S. Has Power. What It Needs Is Authority. ("Moral Authority")

Ron Suskind, in the WaPo, here

"...A quarter-century later, Cheney expanded that concept for the current president, making sure that Bush was not over-briefed so that he could, if necessary, deny his own presidential statements and dodge accountability. At day's end, it fooled no one. But the error made by Cheney and the complicit Bush was deeper -- they misread the nature of real power and misunderstood the way it flows from a truly honest conversation among leaders and, in a democracy, their bosses, the people. There is a strong consensus among historians about what the world learned from Watergate: that the rule of law in America is not a matter of convenience. In fact, under the duly constituted laws, a president is no different from the garbage collector rolling a can to his truck on Pennsylvania Avenue...

During the presidential campaign, I interviewed a London radical with suspected connections to al-Qaeda. He was particularly concerned about how Obama might be the agent of such change. "Obama would be a nightmare for us," he said. "He looks like the world, he knows Islam, his grandfather was a goat herder from Kenya, living like much of the world still lives. As president, he might finally unify the world's Muslim moderates, who outnumber us four or five to one. They know who we are, where we live. They could crush us."