"Have you lost your rabbit-ass mind?" is what my daddy used to say to me, but no, I'm serious.

You should all read, "White-Haired Guy Gets Mad," a last-page essay by Pulizter Prize-winning conservative Republican columnist, George F. Will, in the August 13 edition of Newsweek. It's a flattering piece about Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd.

Yeah, Dodd I said.

But the essay isn't really about Chris Dodd, though he doesn't forget about him. The point is that Dodd's dad was apparently a prosecutor who assisted Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg trials, and Dodd is about to publish a collection of letters written during that time period from his dad--a future senator from Connecticut--to his mom.

Then, Will takes the improbable step of recommending another book: Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, by Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe. (That's right. He plugged a book by a Globe writer. Would I steer you wrong?)

The central issue tackled by Will is how the executive branch of the government, under the rule of an autocratic president, has attempted to set up an imperial form of government. He quotes Savage on so-called "signing statements":

"If a president has the power to instruct the government NOT to enforce laws that he alone has declared to be unconstitutional, then he could free himself from the need to OBEY laws that restrict his own actions." (emphasis provided in quote)

Moving back and forth between the Savage and Dodd books, Will makes a concise, tight case for a serious Constitutional study of the abuse of power in the Bush White House. And he does indeed plug Chris Dodd a bit. The only statement he made that I disagreed with was highlighted in the magazine:

The Democratic campaign is hollow because its subtext--loathing for this president--is more visceral than intellectual."

Lord, I wish it WERE more visceral. Right now I see way more policy papers and dry debates over absurd media-engineered controversies than I do gut-level, jugular politics like the Republicans do oh so well.

But I tip my hat to a conservative for taking on this subject. No, he does not call for impeachment. But he does make a case in his quiet conservative way that something is badly out of balance in Oz these days, and has enough intelligence and respect to note that it took a Democrat to point it out.