Power and the President

Getting back to the point of yesterday's post (which I merely alluded to in the title), the recent spate of stories out of Washington are painting a big picture that shouldn't be concealed by the details of the smaller stories. That is, that this administration believes that the power of the executive was weakened by the War Powers Act of 1973 and the post-Vietnam era. President Cheney, ahem, Vice President Cheney said as much in an interview with Bob Woodward last January:

"Cheney was especially critical of anything that would undermine the president's powers as commander in chief. He said he agrees with many who believe the War Powers Act, which was passed in 1973 and attempts to restrict the president's use of military force, is "unconstitutional," though that has not been fully tested in the courts.

"That made a change in the institutional arrangements that I don't think is healthy," the vice president said. "I don't think you should restrict the president's authority to deploy military forces because of the Vietnam experience."

As recently as yesterday, the erstwhile VP reiterated these remarks in the context of the wiretapping scandal:

"'I believe that the president is entitled and needs to have unfiltered advice in formulating policy. He ought to be able to seek the opinion of anybody he wants to and that he should not have to reveal, for example, who he talked to that morning.'"

And, in terms of the wiretaps, the VP was unapologetic:

"But I do believe that especially in the day and age we live in, the nature of the threats we face, the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy."

Leaving aside the precise legal arguments (which are one-sided against the King, by the way), I really have three problems with this: 1. they lied, 2. they broke the law, and 3. power shouldn't be unlimited.

Lying

As reported elsewhere, Bush specifically said that all wiretaps were authorized by the FISA court in a speech last April:

"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

In fact, he repeatedly claimed that wiretaps needed a court order no less than five more times between April and July. Momma always told me not to lie. Then again, lying comes easy to this administration.

Law Breaking

There is little doubt that King George broke the law on at least one, if not more, occasions. I will not quibble with Cheney's argument that Presidential powers dwindled in the aftermath of Vietnam, Watergate, and Iran-Contra. I fundamentally disagree with Cheney and think his position is the fast road to tyranny (as did a number of founding fathers), but I won't argue with him.

What I will state, however, is that if they truly believe that Presidential power was limited and needed expansion, especially in this particular area, then they should have made their case to Congress and changed the law. Subverting the legal process for extra-legal adventures smacks of an unfettered government of the exact nature that the Framer's of Constitution wished to prevent. It's called Checks and Balances for a reason.

Not only that, they broke the law! And Momma always told me not to break the law.

The fact we haven't had impeachment hearings reveals just how destitute our "robust" democracy is. American culture skewers the world for non-democratic processes, for corruption, for setting a bad example (someone call up Iverson and tell him he's off the hook), or for any reason that we wish. But now, when the CEO of America Inc. specifically and intentionally breaks the law on an issue that involves fundamental freedoms, we're hearing little more than media outrage? Sorry, football players have lost contracts over lesser offenses. CEOs have been imprisoned for a lack of transparency. Martha Stewart was imprisoned (sort of) for insider trading. This offense clearly trumps them all. King George shouldn't just be impeached; he should be jailed.

My sum analysis, however, suggests that the President didn't turn to Congress because he knew they wouldn't go for it. Now, if it was a democractically controlled Congress, I could understand that. But last time I checked, the GOP controls both the House and Senate. So, I can only conclude that King George's idea of a "strong presidency" resembles this.

Dictator

My greatest fear from all of this is that America is slowly marching away from our freedoms toward a more controlled, less democratic state. One scholar once warned that freedom isn't lost over night; it's lost bit by bit until one day you wake up and find you don't have any left. This has long been a concern of mine. Support for gay rights, drug decriminalization, etc - my motivation for advocating that people have a right to do what they want in their homes is entirely selfish. Once the government gets into people's lives, into their bedrooms, etc, we lose the fundamental right to privacy and the rest of our liberties can't be far behind.

What is particularly troubling about this administration is that they seem to think two things:

1. that America is at war, and
2. that 'war' is a blank check.

But we're not at war. We haven't been at war since Iraq was smashed to bits and pieces. But even if we were at war, having a nameless, faceless enemy as a justification for slowly nibbling away at fundamental, Constitutional freedoms is a truly frightening thought. The entire foundation of the American democratic experience is checks and balances. Those don't just go away because "we're at war".

Whatever happened to "give me liberty or give me death?"