American Monarchy?

Slate has a scary article about a Presidential directive to keep the country running in case of a disaster. It is called NSPD-51

I don't want to be alarmist, I have no evidence there's a coup brewing. But I think the American people and their congressional reps deserve some say in how they will be ruled when the ordinary rules go out the window in a national emergency. For one thing, what will happen to the Bill of Rights' guarantees of individual liberty and the courts that are supposed to enforce them?

If you ask me, setting aside any paranoid fantasies, it is clear on the most basic level—read it yourself—that NSPD-51 is the creation of irresponsible incompetents, bulls in the china shop of our constitutional framework. It is a recipe for disaster. For a catastrophe of governance that would match whatever physical catastrophe it followed and threaten the re-establishment of constitutional democracy. It would make the partisan warfare over the 2000 election in Florida seem like child's play. We might recover from a disaster but we might never recover from the "continuity coordination" that followed, "coordination" that could forever undermine any faith in the actual continuity of constitutional liberty in America since it would put it at the mercy of any president who wants to "coordinate continuity" rather than govern legally.

As the author states, it is obviously prudent to plan for disasters. However, the President needs to bring in Congress on this issue. The go-it-alone approach isn't going to cut it. We also need the media to be harping on this more. Aren't they supposed to be the fourth estate? And while Republicans seem to have mostly supported the Bush administration's push for more executive power, I can't see them being so happy about it when a Democrat is in office. I also can't imagine some Democrats (read: Hillary) willingly turning over any power that Bush has so kindly acquired for her.

No matter who is in the White House, this is a nightmare. America is not supposed to be a monarchy.

UPDATE: Fixed typos.