The fact that it's not all that easy to tell should frighten us. If it wasn't in The Onion, I'm not sure we'd know:
In a decisive 1-0 decision Monday, President Bush voted to grant the president the constitutional power to grant himself additional powers.
"As president, I strongly believe that my first duty as president is to support and serve the president," Bush said during a televised address from the East Room of the White House shortly after signing his executive order. "I promise the American people that I will not abuse this new power, unless it becomes necessary to grant myself the power to do so at a later time."
The Presidential Empowerment Act, which the president hand-drafted on his own Oval Office stationery and promptly signed into law, provides Bush with full authority to permit himself to authorize increased jurisdiction over the three branches of the federal government, provided that the president considers it in his best interest to do so.
The truly frightening thing is that if this wasn't a parody, if it really was happening, there's a sizable percentage of people who would not only support it, but would consider anyone who opposed it a terrorist-sympathizing Arab-loving, liberal nancy boy.
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True... until Hillary Clinton gets elected president of the US and all of the sudden the War on Terror will be over and Checks and Balances will once again have a place in our government.
Isn't this pretty much what Bush is doing with all those signing statements which pretty much all say that if W. doesn't want to obey a law, he doesn't have to, and he can just keep doing things his way?
But did he issue a signing statement, in which he said he'd interpret his power to give himself more power in the light of his article II powers as commander in chief and the theory of the unitary executive?
The final paragraph of the story is a perfect shot at Specter:
Isn't this what is really going on?
I'm with Dexceus! I'm on the edge of actually believing that Bush has already done this--secretly of course, since all such missives are TOP SECRET--and we'll find out as various administrators and numeraries in the lower reaches of government leak what they've been asked to do. Onion's piece may be wishful thinking, wishful in that they wish it were truly parody and the truth.
This is not a parody.
In 2002 (already!), Congress passed a bill requiring the Executive Branch to give a detailed account of whenever statutes went unenforced because of signing statements.
Bush signed the bill into law -- and at the same time said the Executive Branch would not comply.
http://www.slate.com/id/2146405/