At one time, Chris Cannon was my Congressional Representative in Moab, Utah, before redistricting sent him off to torment other small towns with his insufferable representation.

Yet for over a decade, he was a fixture not just of Utah politics, but increasingly in the Intermountain West as a whole. He is currently the Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, a group that, tomorrow, will introduce its latest bill seeking to plunder and pillage the public lands under the guise of "energy security" -- a worn out and delusional rhetorical trope that too many Democrats, including our nominee, unfortunately still embrace.

Nonetheless: last night, in a small primary in the 3rd District of Utah, Chris Cannon got an astounding 20 point kick to the door from voters who overwhelmingly supported former Gov. Hunstman aide Jason Chaffetz's right-wing challenge to Cannon.

If you know anything about Chris Cannon, you know that a right-wing challenge to Cannon has to be far, far to the right. And since Chaffetz is virtually guaranteed to defeat his Democratic opponent in November, the seat will stay Republican, and one right-wing kook will be replaced by another right-wing kook in the congressional delegation of Utah.

As John McCain would say, that's not change.

Still, it's good to see Chris Cannon go, and his crushing defeat is further indication that the Republican party is officially in a political wilderness, and that the disillusionment of its base may soon turn to a fury that radically transforms the face of the party.

And that disarray will make it awfully difficult for them to win national elections anytime in the near future.

Glenn Greenwald:

The Administration is expressly claiming that the President does have the right to violate laws of Congress because his executive power is absolute and thus cannot be restricted by anything. And rather than applying this theory of unchecked executive power to a single case (as the Reagan Administration did in Iran-contra), the Bush Administration has arrogated unto itself this monarchical power as a general proposition, applicable to each and every issue which can be said to relate, however generally, to this undeclared "war" against terrorism.

This view of the Presidency – which now exists not just in odious theory but in real, live, breathing form vested in George Bush – is precisely what the monarchy-fearing Founders insisted should never occur and, with the enactment of the U.S. Constitution, would never occur.

This absolute power claimed and enthusiastically exercised by George Bush violates not just specific Constitutional limitations, but the core principles of the Constitution: that we are a nation of laws not men; that each branch shall be "co-equal" to the others and checked and limited by the other two; and that the people shall retain ultimate power by vesting in them the right to enact supreme laws through the Congress which shall bind all other citizens, including the President....

Both the Bush Administration’s theory of its own unchecked power and its indiscriminate and aggressive use of that power to violate Congressional law contradicts every constitutional principle created to ensure that we do not live under unchecked Executive tyranny. If the President is allowed to get away with secretly decreeing that he can violate the law and then doing exactly that, then there really are no remaining checks on Executive power -- and we have, without hyperbole, arrived at the very definition of tyranny.

The country has, more or less with a quiet complacency, stood by while this Administration imprisoned American citizens with no due process, while the Administration sanctioned torture and then used it to extract "evidence" to justify those detentions, and while the Administration exploited the fear of terrorist acts to bestow onto itself unprecedented powers.

If the naked assertion of absolute power by the Bush Administration -- and the use of that power to eavesdrop on American citizens without any judicial review -- does not finally prompt the public regardless of partisan allegiance to take a stand against this undiluted claim to real tyrannical power, then it is impossible to imagine what would ever prompt such a stand.

This really is the end of the line for those who claim to believe in the constitution-- and those sworn to defend it-- to stand up and do something about it.

Let's be clear: the President today admitted to breaking the law, and declared that he would continue to break the law because it his God-given right to break the law as President. This response is the only truly appropriate one:

The President's shocking admission that he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, without going to a court and in violation of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, further demonstrates the urgent need for these protections. The President believes that he has the power to override the laws that Congress has passed. This is not how our democratic system of government works. The President does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow. He is a president, not a king.

High crimes indeed.

(Via Gilliard.)