Strange times indeed

Our country's attorney general testified (sort of) on Monday about the administration's warrentless survaillance. His performance was yet another illustration of the Bush administration's stunning disdain for any branch of government other than the executive. More and more the administration is simply claiming the legislature has no power to make laws - not, at least, if the words "war" or "terror" or "protect" can be worked into the subject in any way.

Faced with sharp reminders - from Republicans, no less - that it is Congress that makes the laws, Alberto Gonzales replied in smirking tones, "We'd be happy to listen to any ideas you might have." This is obviously the new approved messaging from the White House, as if the United States Congress were simply a warm-and-fuzzy citizen's advisory committee that has started taking itself too seriously. You're here to give the illusion of public participation. We're sorry, were you under the impression that you had any actual power? Oh dear, how awkward.

I find myself reminded of Nicholas II and Alexandra. Tsar and Tsarina, Emperor and Empress of All the Russias, Divine Autocrats.

Alexandra believed, as monarchs did for many centuries, that her husband ruled by divine right. Suggestions of any obligation to consult or share power with the people were dismissed not out of power-hunger or disdain for the good judgment of common citizens - or at least, not just from that - but from a genuine belief that anything other than absolute power was a violation of God's will.

Despite descending from the British royal family, with its constitution and its rowdy democracy, Alexandra saw "autocrat" as a positive term. Her copious letters and other contemporary accounts are filled with sincere expressions of this belief.* Faced with the demand that the tsar sign "a constitution or some horror like that," a frustrated Alexandra declares "Nicky is an autocrat! How could he share his divine rights with a parliament?"

* See, for example, The Last Empress: The Life & Times of Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia by Greg King.