M. Romney - "Habeas Corpus? Probably not if I am President.

Glenn Greenwald has centered on a key plank that appears likely in the Republican platform if Mitt Romney gets elected President.

Various Republican candidates attended a meeting of Club for Growth, and afterwards, National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru spoke to Cato Institute's President Ed Crane about what they said. This brief report from Ponnuru is simply extraordinary:

Crane asked if Romney believed the president should have the authority to arrest U.S. citizens with no review. Romney said he would want to hear the pros and cons from smart lawyers before he made up his mind.

Mitt Romeny can't say -- at least not until he engages in a careful and solemn debate with a team of "smart lawyers" -- whether, in the United States of America, the President has the power to imprison American citizens without any opportunity for review of any kind. But in today's Republican Party, Romney's openness to this definitively tyrannical power is the moderate position. Ponnuru goes on to note:

Crane said that he had asked Giuliani the same question a few weeks ago. The mayor said that he would want to use this authority infrequently.

It sounds like Giuliani is positioning himself in this race as the "compassionate authoritarian" -- "Yes, of course I have the power to imprison you without charges or review of any kind, but as President, I commit to you that I intend (no promises) to 'use this authority infrequently.'"

Two of the three leading Republican candidates for President either embrace or are open to embracing the idea that the President can imprison Americans without any review, based solely on the unchecked decree of the President. And, of course, that is nothing new, since the current Republican President not only believes he has that power but has exercised it against U.S. citizens and legal residents in the U.S. -- including those arrested not on the "battlefield," but on American soil.

Habeas corpus has been the basis of all legal Freedoms since King John signed the Magna Carts in 1215. There is only one reason for a President to do away with habeas corpus, even in extremely limited circumstance, and that reason is to impose an authoritarian government.

An authoritarian government operates under "Rule (of the population) by Law," not as we function here in America, under the "Rule of Law." Under "Rule by Law" the top government officials are not subject to any limitations built into the law. They are above the law.

Someone ought to ask Jose Padilla how well that works.