In Calabresi's own words: "In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States ... somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power. That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power.”

Calabresi, from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, continued: "The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,” he told a group of like-minded liberal lawyers.

The Sun reports, "The allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society."

But Calabresi didn't stop there. He was just getting started: "The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual," the judge said.

Well, of course he's not suggesting Bush is like Hitler! He's merely comparing the two; likening, equating, paralleling, relating ... but he would never say Bush is Hitler. Of course not.

And was he finished? Did he stop at his "comparison"? Not a chance. Calabresi then said that President Bush should be cast out of office, not because of "politics" but for the "structural reassertion of democracy."

How a former dean of the Yale Law School can forget that we live in a constitutional republic is beyond the ability of educated Americans to comprehend, but that didn't stop the judge from begrudging the president acting like the president, and forgetting that it's the Electoral College, not the popular vote, that counts in America.

In fact, the Electoral College was specifically set up to limit the power of populous states to overcome other states in a national election.

In the case of Election 2000, this system had the unfortunate effect of incurring the wrath of the liberal establishment, which was incensed that it couldn't simply win the popular vote by taking the most populous counties and thereby take the whole election, despite the electoral votes of the rest of America.

The Sun writes that Calabresi, much to the delight of his audience, mirrored this still-festering liberal chagrin when he told his audience that Bush should not be availing himself of the powers of the presidency because Bush lacked a "compelling electoral mandate from the public."

In other words, it's the old Democratic saw that "Bush isn't president because he didn't win the popular vote." Right. He only won that pesky "electoral vote" thingy in that nettlesome, Democrat-reviled document called the Constitution of the United States of America.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, put it best when he told the Sun there is no reason to limit Bush’s authority because he did not win the popular vote in 2000.

"To say that a person who comes in under an Electoral College vote but not a majority of the popular vote and they’re somehow relegated to president-minus ... is a very dangerous precedent," said Mr. Sekulow.

Dangerous to the republic for which we stand - which won’t be standing for long if judges like Guido Calabresi continue to "interpret" our Constitution however they see fit.

Editor's note: