Kool-Aid cut-back leads to spinal development?

Last weekend I noted an article by Charlie Savage in the Boston Globe which began:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Glenn Greenwald tells us in a post today that Savage has followed up with the startling revelation that Arlen apparently hasn't been drinking his Kool-Aid:

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing the White House of ''very blatant encroachment" on congressional authority, said yesterday he will hold an oversight hearing into President Bush's assertion that he has the power to bypass more than 750 laws enacted over the past five years.

''There is some need for some oversight by Congress to assert its authority here," Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. ''What's the point of having a statute if . . . the president can cherry-pick what he likes and what he doesn't like?"

Specter said he plans to hold the hearing in June. He said he intends to call administration officials to explain and defend the president's claims of authority, as well to invite constitutional scholars to testify on whether Bush has overstepped the boundaries of his power.

Glenn observes:

But perhaps Specter -- who just last week threatened to cut off funding for the NSA program if the Administration continues its obstruction of Congressional investigations into that program -- has had enough. As Savage pointed out in his article last Sunday: "For the first five years of Bush's presidency, his legal claims attracted little attention in Congress or the media." Up until now, most people chose to ignore the fact that the President was acting in accordance with these radical theories of lawlessness.

But the more out in the open those theories become, the less possible it will to ignore them. It is hard to imagine even Americans who are apathetic (or, as in Specter's case, craven and meek) expressing indifference over the fact that the President has -- literally and expressly -- declared himself to be outside of, and above, the law.

Better men than Arlen have caved in the face of the Rovian pressure that will surely be brought to bear against this initiative. The possibility that Arlen has had a backbone transplant has yet to be confirmed so you'll forgive me if I don't expect to much to come of this, but I can't help but think that, maybe someday, people will find that they've had enough of the tragic farce and decide to hold BushCo accountable.