John Yoo had an op-ed in the Times yesterday about what he terms Bush's goal of "reinvigorating the presidency" by asserting the authority to do whatever he thinks should be done regardless of what Congress and the Courts say. In that op-ed he writes:
The founders intended that wrongheaded or obsolete legislation and judicial decisions would be checked by presidential action, just as executive overreaching is to be checked by the courts and Congress.
Orin Kerr at Volokh asks readers the obvious question: "Any ideas as to what historical evidence supports this claim?" The answer, of course, is none. The founders gave the President the power of the veto to deal with legislation that he believes is wrongheaded or unconstitutional legislation, something Bush has only utilized one time in his entire presidency (and then for the most ridiculous and irrelevant of bills). He doesn't want to utilize the power the constitution actually gives him, he wants to assert the authority to do whatever he wants while simultaneously declaring that neither Congress nor the courts can stop him from doing it and no American has legal standing to file any constitutional challenge at all. In other words, he is proposing that he has authority that cannot be challenged or denied by anyone - the very thing we revolted against 230 years ago and the very thing our Constitution intended to prevent. This commenter gets it right:
Let me lay out that historical evidence, from the Constitutional Convention and the Federalist papers:When ,
because . .
the .
and . The President , insofar as
it.
See. It's quite obvious in light of the above evidence. Naturally, I had to redact portions of it, because the Constitutional Convention and the authors of the Federalist papers classified that evidence and neither the Court or Congress can have access to it. The states secret doctrine, moreover, forbids us from asking any further questions.
Hard to argue with that kind of logic. Kerr also points out that back in 2000, Yoo wrote the following:
President Clinton exercised the powers of the imperial presidency to the utmost in the area in which those powers are already at their height -- in our dealings with foreign nations. Unfortunately, the record of the administration has not been a happy one, in light of its costs to the Constitution and the American legal system. On a series of different international relations matters, such as war, international institutions, and treaties, President Clinton has accelerated the disturbing trends in foreign policy that undermine notions of democratic accountability and respect for the rule of law.
I fully agree with him that Clinton often acted in ways that had costs to the constitution and our legal system and tried to increase the power of the presidency beyond its constitutional limits. But how anyone in their right mind could object to what Clinton did in that regard but applaud what Bush has done as "reinvigorating" the presidency is well beyond my ability to comprehend.
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The REALLY scary thing is that so far -- both as Goverbor and as President -- Bush has only had to deal with a legislature that was controlled by his own party. What is he going to do when one or both Houses is Democratic?
For that matter, I keep on having this nightmare of a Democratic President being elected in 2008 and Bush deciding that this is a mistake and refusing to leave the White House.
We are going to need about a 16 to 20 year period to start swinging the executive back to where it needs to be. The problem with that is, and I say this as a partisan democrat, the democrats will not want to give up the power that the executive gained. I am sure that we will have some backing off if the democrats take Congress, just to hurt Bush, but nothing so concrete as to hurt their chances of controling more of the government in 2008.
It sucks, but that is partisan politics.
I think it was Glenn Greenwald that pointed out that the "wrongheaded or obsolete legislation" checked by the executive is in the form of the veto, not by selectively ignoring whatever laws he damn well feels like.
Absurd isn't the word here. The correct word is "Despotic".
We are going to need about a 16 to 20 year period to start swinging the executive back to where it needs to be. The problem with that is, and I say this as a partisan democrat, the democrats will not want to give up the power that the executive gained. I am sure that we will have some backing off if the democrats take Congress, just to hurt Bush, but nothing so concrete as to hurt their chances of controling more of the government in 2008.
This is why I am pained by the prospect of voting dem this fall. I think we definately need a divided government again but I don't see the dems having any more interest in breaking the republicratic monopoly on our democracy than the repubs. And I really don't imagine they would be keen on giving up all that presidential power - who would, once in that seat?
I'm sick and tired of crazy right-wing editorial boards at newspapers like the New York Times spouting off their far-right, out-of-the-mainstream fascist ideas.
[/sarcasm]
Remember that in 2004 Bush said his 51% majority was a "mandate" to do what he wishes. I honestly believe that he sees elections as the ultimate check on power and that he's not abusing his power since people reelected him. Which makes sense in light of his other actions and statements which point to a majoritarian political philosophy.
John Yoo, while in service to Bush, formulated and drafted many of the legal "interpretations" relied upon by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfedl, Gonzalez and Ashcroft, to justify torturing detainees. I should like to see him tried for war crimes.
Washington, Jefferson, Madison...
Yes, but they've all got a pre-9/11 mentality.
In the editorial, John Yoo wrote, "The changes of the 1970's occurred largely because we had no serious national security threats to United States soil, but plenty of paranoia in the wake of Richard Nixon's use of national security agencies to spy on political opponents."
As I recall, in the 1970's we had the threat of the Soviet Union (how I miss those guys sometimes) to deal with. They could deliver megatons of thermonuclear power to our doorstep without having to depend on commercial airlines for transportation.
There are many times when I look back fondly on the transparency, restraint and overall good governance of the Nixon administration . . .