Who Are "The Deciders" On Afghanistan?

Since General Stanley McChrystal released a report demanding a massive military escalation in Afghanistan, two things have happened: The Obama administration has taken time to review all its options, and the rest of Washington has collectively freaked out at the prospect of a president doing anything other than rubber-stamping military demands. The latter reaction betrays a disturbing - yet predictable - authoritarianism inside the Beltway, a kind of authoritarianism, as I show in my latest newspaper column, that insults the Constitution...