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Glenn Greenwald knows how a patriot would act. He went from being a Constitutional lawyer on the political sidelines to a Tom-Paine style, nationally-acclaimed blogger. His specialty is -- well -- detailing the Bush Administration assaults on the Constitution.

Glenn Greenwald answers the title of his own book with his book. His blog is called "Unclaimed Territory," and his book reclaims the ground of Constitutional rights from the clutches of the Bush White House. Because Greenwald is a specialist in Constitutional law, he knows of what he speaks. He has a clear, persuasive, and compelling writing style, as if he were making the closing statement in a long trial.

"The notion that the president has the right to act in violation of duly enacted laws," Greenwald writes, "would have been repellent to all the founders, including the great American revolutionary Thomas Paine, who wrote in his legendary 1776 pamphlet Common Sense that those who claim the power President Bush is claiming -- namely, to act in violation of the law -- are claiming the power of a king."

As we write this review, we have just finished talking with Greenwald for an upcoming BuzzFlash interview. He is a lucid thinker, steeped in history, and knows that Bush and Cheney are not the first chief executives to illegally spy on Americans. But, no administration has broken the law so openly, so frequently, and with such impunity. No administration has launched such a broad attack on the Constitution. No administration has sought -- in essence -- to replace so completely the rule of law with the personal rule of unitary executive authority.

Nixon came close, but no cigar. Bush and Cheney win -- hands down -- in the race to marginalize the Constitution into virtual irrelevance.

BuzzFlash discussed with Greenwald how the modern media lack of attention span beyond a six-hour news cycle aids the Bush Administration in their illegal activities, because each new revelation of Constitutional violations washes away the previous ones. We have become a nation devoid of historical memory beyond the last news cycle.

But there is also the problem that the mainstream media tends to discount Bush lawbreaking, on the whole, because there is no Congressional investigative body or special prosecutor to issue subpoenas and findings of fact that would legally determine that the Bush Administration repeatedly breaks the law. In fact, a series of Boston Globe articles about how the White House defiantly has said it will ignore the Congressional intent of more than 750 laws (through aggressive signing statements) has largely been unreported by the rest of the mainstream press.

So, for the time being, we have patriots like Glenn Greenwald to make the court case that Congress won't on "defending American values from a president run amok."

None less than the associate deputy general under Ronald Reagan has stated: "President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law."

And John Dean, Nixon's White House Attorney, writes of "How Would a Patriot Act": "Glenn Greenwald has assembled a devastating bill of particulars against the Bush and Cheney administration's insistence on operating outside the rule of law. Greenwald has gathered solid information and marshaled a litany of abuses of power that make Richard Nixon's imperial presidency look timid."

There are few patriots on Capitol Hill. You can count them on your hand. As with the American Revolution, advocacy in defense of liberty will come most strongly from citizen advocates.

Glenn Greenwald, Constitutional lawyer, is one such patriot.

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