Infamous

William Safire (arch-conservative, Nixon apologist) registers an eloquent and important protest against Bush's outageous, terrifying military tribunal order.

Misadvised by a frustrated and panic-stricken attorney general, a president of the United States has just assumed what amounts to dictatorial power to jail or execute aliens. Intimidated by terrorists and inflamed by a passion for rough justice, we are letting George W. Bush get away with the replacement of the American rule of law with military kangaroo courts....at a time when even liberals are debating the ethics of torture of suspects -- weighing the distaste for barbarism against the need to save innocent lives -- it's time for conservative iconoclasts and card-carrying hard-liners to stand up for American values.