I'm fine with discussing it right here - if people have complaints we can break it off into another thread.

While we may not agree on some of the results, I agree with your general point. If the executive branch is too powerful, it's going to exert too much influence on other agencies and branches; for example, in the examples you cited, opinions were requested from the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel, a branch of the DOJ) on the legality of various activities.

Now, the attorneys in the OLC are extremely intelligent, the cream of the law school and clerkship crop. But, there's a question of whether the executive branch was exerting any influence on those attorneys, thus affecting the opinions given by OLC attorneys (like the opinions done by Yoo and Bybee, for example). You can see the problem - otherwise brilliant people, influenced by pressure, use their intelligence to put out a memo that starts with the conclusion and works backward in the reasoning. The reasoning isn't great, but it's passed along to people who take it as gospel truth (because, usually, those OLC opinions effectively become the law).

I think that's where a big part of the problem comes in, and it's happened other times in history. You look at Lincoln and Roosevelt, and they took executive power to new heights; not everything they did was positive, but they've been lauded in the history books. You look at Nixon, and it's worked the other way; who knows how it will work with Bush.

I honestly don't know where President Obama will go with it, but my early sense is that he has an expansive view of the power of the executive branch.

/hijack/ ... but not really, because this is what the thread was originally about:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28760946/?GT1=43001

“Despite the formal attire and celebrity entertainment, balls aren't overly fancy affairs. Lines often are long to get in, go to the bathroom or check your coat, and the food is heavy on vegetables with dip and cheese cubes.
In a sign, perhaps, of the tough economic times, guests who already paid anywhere from $75 for a ticket to thousands more for a package deal had to buy their own drinks served in small plastic cups. Beer went for $6, cocktails for $9 and champagne for $12.
People were standing in line outside Union Station to get into the Eastern States Ball an hour and a half after it started. Because of very limited seating at the Western ball, a number of attendees in long gowns and fancy dress plopped cross-legged on the floor.
"This is what happens in a down economy. No chairs, no highboys — it's the floor and plastic cups," commented ballgoer Brig Lawson, 38, of Las Vegas.”

...maybe the Bush’s should have bought some nice glasses, too :rolleyes::D

There ya have it, especially the bolded.

I can't recall the last time I saw the Bible used during a court proceeding. It was probably on television.

As far as I know, no courts still use the Bible for swearing in - your oath is legitimized (in a legal sense) on its own accord.

YMMV in, like, rural Alabama state courts, but who cares?

It would be much funnier to see the Bible whipped out during depositions - court reporters would have to be ordained, it would be a whole scene.