Literal Power in a Metaphorical War?

John Burton, Socialist Equality Party candidate for United States Congress from the 29th District of California (I suspect some people will kill the messenger), has demonstrated his eloquence by summing up the entirety of the current epoch:

From any legitimate legal perspective, the “war on terror” is not a real “war”—a state of belligerency between sovereign nations—but a metaphorical war, like the “war on drugs,” for example, and does not constitutionally trigger the executive’s war powers. Moreover, its object is only a vague reference to a tactic, “terror,” rather than an identifiable organization or movement.

It's easy to see the syllogistic logic of Bush's argument: The war on terror will last for generations. It's a war, so it's a state of exception giving the executive virtually unlimited powers. Therefore, the executive has virtually unlimited powers for the next several generations.

John Yoo's legal theories reveal a similarly disturbing logic:

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Mark Levin, slightly-shy-of-genius, has complained that Congress and the Supreme Court are stripping the President of his war-making authority, ignoring the passage in the Constitution that gives Congress the authority to declare war.

Somehow I doubt compulsory logic or history lessons will solve any of this.