If they trusted the people to govern themselves, they'd have picked the name "Democrats".

"Republican" means they're more comfortable with a form of government consisting of, for all intents and purposes, dictators chosen by election; in other words, they believe that America is a democracy only one day out of every two years. Republicans support a strong Executive branch, and rely on a doctrine called "unitary executive" to maintain that the Executive, or "Glorious Leader", is inherently superior to the legislative, or "stinking rabble", branch of government.

Except, of course, when it suits Dick Cheney to try for the best of both worlds by maintaining that the VP's role to cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate means that the VP is not really part of the Executive branch for the purpose of responding to subpoenas and otherwise being held accountable. Except, of course, for the rest of the time between casting tie-breaking votes, when he's in his office in the White House claiming executive privilege for whispering advice into W's ear. The question in last night's debate was an attempt to find out if Palin would follow in Cheney's footsteps, but of course she had not the slightest clue what it was about. Biden sure did.

Bottom line, you see, it's not so much that Republicans don't believe in separation of power; but rather, that they believe in grossly unequal power between those two branches of the government. The People's branch of government can be as separate as it wants as long as it's completely powerless and is perfectly free to pound sand.

We'll leave for a later symposium the discussion of the role of the third branch of government, Those Damn Stinking Judicial Activists Who Should Burn in Hell Except When They're Ruling Our Way.

You're welcome. Any time.