Nothing in it is revelatory, but “Cheney’s War“, a Frontline documentary detailing how Cheney used the weight of his special council David Addington and a number of Justice Department cronies to levy the President’s power, is absolutely gripping, and at times shocking in its narrative. A few years back I’d be loath to consider Richard Ashcroft in any positive light, but the hospital-bed showdown in which he, James Comey and one-time-head of the Office of Legal Council Jack Goldsmith shot down Bush, Cheney, Addington and Alberto Gonzales is almost inspiring in that it demonstrates that though there are no good men in DC, there are at least a handful who may still respect the rule of law.

The documentary runs through the countless instances of legal subterfuge that has marked the never-ending war on terror, and the truly terrifying, anti-democratic legal precedents that have been put in place. What is most troubling to me, however, is not merely what has passed–at this point, it’s almost redundant to continue handwringing about domestic wiretaps, for example–but the precedent that has been placed down for the future. There are scandals aplenty in this Administration, but whoever succeeds the current criminal regime will not pursue prosecution out of fear of the potential political blowback, and are unlikely to seriously undo the Constitutional damage that has been done by this Administration–once again, out of fear of political harm, in addition to that Administration’s own self-serving considerations.

The extent to which the current administration has undermined the Constitutional system of checks and balances and the authority of Congress, while transferring near-dictorial power to the Executive Branch, is nothing but a travesty. I find it terrifying to think that no matter who enters office in January 2009, there will unlikely be enough political will to refute the allegedly legal documents that have established such a distorted interpretation of executive power. And so those precedents will remain, waiting, for the next generation of Cheney acolytes to pick up on them and continue the work of this Administration come 2012, 2016, 2020.

Watch “Cheney’s War” online