Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Gene Healy, writing at the Cato blog, has an important message for all those alleged conservatives cheering on Bush's vast expansion of Presidential power. Commenting on a new book from John Podhoretz called Can She Be Stopped? Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless..., he writes:
What I do know is that if Hillary is the next president, she'll be able to lay claim to a number of vast, extraconstitutional powers championed by right-wingers like, uh, John Podhoretz. Among those powers is the "inherent executive authority" to wiretap at will and, perhaps, to seize American citizens on American soil and hold them without charges for the duration of the war on terror -- in other words, forever.The '90s weren't that long ago. And I remember a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over misused FBI Files and suspicious IRS audits. Over the last four and a half years, many of the same wailers and gnashers have cheer-led the concentration of unreviewable power in the executive branch, as if George W. Bush would be the last president ever to wield that power. And now, lo and behold, there's the mistress of Travelgate warming up in the on-deck circle. Join me in a bitter chuckle.
Funny, that didn't make me feel better.
Me neither. I don't trust Hillary Clinton with those vastly expanded and, according to Bush's apologists, inherent and unreviewable, Presidential powers any more than I trust Bush with them. Be careful what you wish for, Republicans, it may well come back to haunt you.
Comments
Personally I don't see her winning, even Bush can't screw up enough for folks to overcome their hatred of her. VP perhaps, but President? I just don't see it.
Posted by: dogmeatIB
| May 16, 2006 11:12 AM
I'm not sure I want Hillary to get elected, but if she does, I'd REALLY like to see her, at her first SOTU address, announcing her intent to at least consider using all that unreviewable power to expose and punish the entire Republican culture of corruption and bigotry, then watch all those GOP congresscritters squirming on prime-time TV, before saying "Just kidding." That moment alone would justify electing her.
Posted by: Raging Bee
| May 16, 2006 11:25 AM
Basic principle in an elective democracy: never give "your" side any advantages that you can't accept having the "other" side wielding at some point. The pendulum inexoraby swings, after all.
Unless, of course, you don't intend for it to be an elective democracy anymore.
Posted by: Janne
| May 16, 2006 11:34 AM
Janne's principle is blatantly exposed by the GOP's fury when Bush's judicial appointees were blocked by the Democratic Senate for a few years. The Republicans screamed about this being an unheard of, unamerican tactic ... somehow they forgot that they had done the same thing to Clinton for the final six years of his administration.
If a Democrat wins in '08, I can almost guarantee, that Republicans will complain that they are violating American's rights, etc., if they utilize any of the powers Bush has been using and they will bitch and moan as if it is the most unheard of violation of presidential powers they have ever heard of.
Posted by: dogmeatIB
| May 16, 2006 11:42 AM
I'm afraid I'm with Dogmeat on this one. Whenever someone even slightly right-of-center needs a single name to sum up All That Is Evil About The Left, they sneer Hillary's. That's a lot of hate, and it's not counterbalanced by much support. She doesn't have anything like her husband's charisma, and by edging to the right to try to woo the Middle, she's losing her base. I honestly don't know why she keeps being named as the Democratic candidate for '08 like the primaries had already been run.
The point remains, of course. I suspect that's the reason that, at their post-2004 peak, the Republicans spoke of establishing a "lasting Republican majority" (didn't one even speak of "neutering" the Democatic party? Not that they haven't done a fine job of that themselves...): they didn't want the Other Side to have the powers that they'd granted themselves. Not ever.
Posted by: Seraph
| May 16, 2006 12:06 PM
darn straight. agree with everything you said.
I hate when the party line parrots ask me if I have anything to hide, and if I don't why am I afraid of it. I remind them that that's the same basic fallacious argument that gun grabbers use. And then they get upset at being compared to gun grabbers. good stuff.
Posted by: IndianCowboy
| May 16, 2006 12:10 PM
I agree with dogmeat, I don't think Hillary has much chance to be elected. But that's not really the point of this post.
Posted by: Ed Brayton
| May 16, 2006 12:13 PM
The chance Hillary has is the same scenario that allowed Bush to squeek into the Whitehouse. This country is terribly polarized. Small shifts in the "middle" can tip the balance. Hillary can be as hated as Bush and still be elected, if there is enough anti-Bush sentiment to shift the tenuous balance. I think it is unlikely, but it is possible.
Posted by: hogeb
| May 16, 2006 12:39 PM
The GOP wants to win elections over and over again. What's the problem with that? It's not as if the Democrats would not wish for the same.
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski
| May 16, 2006 1:17 PM
Roman said: The GOP wants to win elections over and over again. What's the problem with that? It's not as if the Democrats would not wish for the same.
In and of itself? Nothing at all. In the context of all these nice police-state powers that a GOP congress has blithely handed over to their President? Maybe a *big* problem.
Posted by: Seraph
| May 16, 2006 2:44 PM
Isn't it weird how people are just assuming that Hillary will be the next pres?
It's like everyone is just capitulating to the notion of the American Dynasty. We've had the Bush Dynasty and then we'll have the Clinton dynasty. Hillary will be in office in 2008 and then Jeb or George P. will be in office in 2012.
Am I the only one freaked out by this?
Not only can we just not allow these corporatized dynasties to continue, we must try somehow to sever the corporate stranglehold on US politics (like that catch phrase? corporate stranglehold)
Posted by: beervolcano
| May 17, 2006 3:03 PM
Especially that in politics, Hillary Clinton was a loser with big ambitions.
Posted by: Roman Werpachowski
| May 17, 2006 3:33 PM