Would you trust (fill-in-name-of-Democratic-presidential candidate) with this power?

That's a good question to ask the conservatives of your acquaintance when discussing any question of executive power or privilege. They'll be forced to either seriously consider the merits of the executive power in question, without reference to current partisanship, or admit that they want to abolish free elections and establish permanent one-party dictatorship.

When Democrats hold the White House, just flip it around and ask it to the fervent Democrats who suddenly forget that they didn't like executive power when it was in the hands of somebody else.

So. Would you trust your least-favored candidate with this power?

US steps into wiretap suit against AT&T
(Other links here, here, here, and elsewhere.)

As near as I can tell, this represents a demand that the executive branch have the power to tell courts to dismiss any and all lawsuits filed in any matter, anywhere, whenever they feel like it, whether or not the government is even a party to the lawsuit. The Bush administration asserts that it need not demonstrate why it wishes to invoke this power or provide any evidence of any national security interest, not even to the judge hearing the case.

Not surprisingly, the administration's business buddies concur in saying that lawsuits involving them should be dismissed whenever the government says so.

As First Amendment attorney Glenn Greenwald points out, the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" was created by a judge, not by the legislature or by that forgotten scrap of paper, the Constitution. And it was, as he demonstrates, created as the result of deliberate fraud on the part of the government.

Who would you trust with this power?