When a Commander-in-Thief who takes power through a judicial coup (elected by the Supreme Court 5-4) arrogates power to himself to round up and jail even long-term resident aliens (lthe Canadian whose been married to a US friend for a couple of decades now and living in America without changing her citizenship qualifies as a "non-citizen"!) and give them secret military kangaroo trials and even sentence them to death (as Gov. Bush so often liked to do!), I worry about dictatorship. So does William Safire. This in a country where we currnetly have more than a thousand desaparecidos.

If any other country, like Peru or China, grabbed an American and gave them a secret trial, we'd be complaining. Are we now to say "go ahead and try them in secret and give themthe death penalty--we do that in America, too."?

--Charlie Baum