Do We Expect Too Much From The President?
By: Bill Egnor Saturday October 3, 2009 4:15 pm
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If you look at the Presidency from the point of view of the Constitution, it really is not a powerful office except in terms of what it prevents. It is really and primarily a check on the powers of other areas of our government and military. The president proposes no legislation, none. He can only do one of two things with a piece of legislation; he can sign it and make it law, or he can veto it. This is intended to be the final check to prevent the Congress from making a big mistake. They can override a veto, it is true, but when a veto happens it requires a reexamination of the bill by both Houses and a two thirds majority in each in order to overrule the President.
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We have been witness to eight years of the lawless behavior of the criminal Bush Administration who have filled the Executive Branch with partisans and used its offices from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Justice to help more and more Republicans get elected. We have seen the Office of the President stick it nose into every part of the Federal Government to help reward their friends and punish their opponents. We have seen them break US surveillance laws, set up extra-legal prisons and torture detainees. All of this was done through either Executive Order or with their willing accomplices in the Congress, but it came from a misunderstanding of the role of the President and a willingness to misuse those powers.All of this leaves us in a difficult place. We have been taught, for many of us our entire adult lives, the office of the President has sweeping powers which can be exercised at will, but this is not really the case.
It makes us feel as though our current President should be doing more, sweeping aside the opposition and putting things right according to the way we see things. This is part of what the hard-core Right fears so much about President Obama; they think he actually has the powers President Bush appropriated and misused. In the hands of someone they inherently distrust and to some level fear, this is a very scary idea indeed.
Those of us on the Left who are frustrated and disappointed by the President have a bit of a problem.
Do we really want President Obama to act in a autocratic fashion like the lawless Bush Administration? There is no doubt major changes could be forced through in this manner, but there is a cost which I think is too high to pay. Namely it is the cost of making the kind of Unitary Executive of the criminal Bush Administration the de facto way all presidents will be able to reign. This is a dangerous precedent to confirm for our Republic.It is only through complete overreach and not a small element of luck that the plans for the Bush Administration backfired on them. If they had limited themselves to Afghanistan instead of going to Iraq, if they had not have those eight US Attorneys who believed in the law over politics, if they had just bitten their tongue about Joe Wilson’s article discrediting the Yellow Cake purchase statement in the State of the Union, if the warrantless wiretapping had not been so overblown that whistleblowers felt they had to come forward, then they might been able to use their misappropriated powers to install a permanent Republican Majority. It is because of their overreach they failed, but who is to say a future Republican could not learn from their mistakes, if this style of Presidency becomes the norm?
On the whole the I think it is better to have a President who is primarily a check and balance than one who can on his or her own hook take the nation in directions which we don’t want to go. If we have this kind of President then we are at the mercy of the least stable of the people we elect.
So, where does that leave those of us who want change for the better? It seems it leaves us with the Congress, who are much tougher to get going in one direction than a single President. This is not to say it is not important that we on the Left keep elected Democratic Presidents, they are, at the very least, less likely to abuse the powers the President does have and more (though not a lot more) amiable to making the limits of Presidential power clear. Still it is not very smart to focus our ire and efforts so strongly on the President,
we have to make it clear to the Congress that abdication of their responsibilities to the President is not acceptable, that failure to engage in their oversight role is grounds for replacement and that pretending their job is solely to do what it takes to get reelected is grounds for a strong primary challenge.more...
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/8675
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