Posse Comitatus: Remembering Why

President Bush, showing in full bloom the instincts that make it clear that whatever he is politically he is not a conservative of the traditional limited-government or Constitutionalist variety, has lofted a trial balloon to promote the idea of having the military play a more extensive, earlier and perhaps even primary role in handling future disasters. The fact that he has mentioned it more than once, and that press secretary Scott McClellan has discussed both that idea and the idea of bypassing governors when disaster strikes, suggests that the notion is not just something that popped into his head on the spur of the moment.