Shouldn't we think about what that means?  All of these subsidiary, discrete battles are shaped by this larger truth.  We're a country that has been continuously at war for decades, insists it is currently at war now, and vows that it will wage war for years if not decades to come (Obama:  we'll be waging this war "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability -- ten years from now").  Exactly as Madison said (and as Wills this week emphasized), as long as we're choosing to be that kind of a nation, then the crux of the Bush/Cheney approach will remain in place.  We can sand-paper away some of the harshest edges ("we're no longer going to drown people in order to extract confessions"); prettify some of what we're doing ("we're going to detain people with no charges based on implied statutory power rather than theories of inherent power"); and avoid making things worse ("we won't seek a new preventive detention law because we don't need one since we already can do that").  But no matter who we elect, the pervasive secrecy, essentially authoritarian character of the Executive, and rapid erosion of core liberties will continue as long as we remain committed to what Wills calls "the empire created by the National Security State."

Glenn Greenwald commenting on the Garry Wills article in my previous post.