The New York Times takes a swipe at President Bush in its Sunday editorial, Our Imperial Presidency at Work. First he gamed McCain over the Torture Amendment with his signing statement. Then he tried divest the Supreme Court of jurisdiction in the detainee cases.

The Times astutely observes:

Both of the offensive theories at work here - that a president's intent in signing a bill trumps the intent of Congress in writing it, and that a president can claim power without restriction or supervision by the courts or Congress - are pet theories of Judge Samuel Alito, the man Mr. Bush chose to tilt the Supreme Court to the right.

The administration's behavior shows how high and immediate the stakes are in the Alito nomination, and how urgent it is for Congress to curtail Mr. Bush's expansion of power. Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by one president embarked on an ideological crusade.

[graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]