CCDS FORUM & DISCUSSION BOARD

NAME: John J. Neumaier
EMAIL: Neuluther@aol.com
DATE: 08/08/2007

TITLE: The Continuing Misuse of Presidential Power

The Continuing Misuse of Presidential Power

Our constitutionally-mandated system of checks and balances is widely viewed as the bedrock of a democratic republic. The three-way separation of power among the President, the Congress, and the Judiciary was designed in part to curb the human appetite for power. Nevertheless, as almost everyone knows, it has not prevented egregious abuses of power throughout our history. That’s one good reason to always distinguish between political theory and political practice. It’s also important to ask who does the checking and what is being balanced.

Consider the political uses and glaring abuses of power that characterize the presidency of George W. Bush. In the economic arena there is his unchecked drive to reduce taxes for those who benefit the most - the super-wealthy (about one percent of the population). Militarily we have seen his ill-fated and irrational “preemptive” war in Iraq, which, unhappily, was unchecked by Congress (although the Constitution explicitly provides that only the Congress can declare war). In the judicial area, although he has the presidential pardoning power, he has recently misused the checks and balances system by overruling the court’s judgment and commuting the prison sentence of I. “Scooter” Libby (his Vice-President’s chief of staff).

The Libby case is symptomatic of the misuse of presidential power. The administration’s transparent aim in this affair, as in so many other cases, was to keep the people and their elected representatives from knowing the machinations to which the President resorted in his quest to justify the invasion of Iraq. Libby was one of several government officials who joined in the orchestrated administration efforts to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson for revealing publicly the misinformation which the President included in his State of the Union address about Hussein’s alleged threat to U.S. security relating to weapons of mass destruction. They sought to punish Wilson by outing his wife Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operator.

In regard to the commutation of Libby’s sentence an interesting letter to the editor by a Houston attorney appeared in the New York Times (7/4/07). It reminded readers that during Bush’s tenure as Governor, the state of Texas carried out more than 150 executions. Some of the executed were mentally retarded. Some had been juveniles when they committed the crime. Lawyers representing 57 of those condemned asked Governor Bush in vain to commute their death sentences to life in prison. So much for the "legal philosophy” of the “passionate conservative, ”George W. Bush

As disturbing as is the administration’s involvement in getting even with Ambassador Wilson by leaking his wife’s name, it is even worse that so far there has been so little Congressional investigative oversight of either the administration’s questionable tactics in dealing with war critics like Wilson or the illegal Iraq war itself. Moreover, when it comes to the third branch of our government, especially, the Supreme Court, the Congress by consenting to the appointment of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito has permitted, nay enabled, the President to achieve a 5 to 4 activist conservative court majority.

Slowly we are learning of the so-called “unitary executive theory”, which the White House and the self-proclaimed “Decider” have embraced in order to continue their expansion of Executive power. When put into practice, the unitary executive theory serves to weaken the government’s Legislative and Judicial branches, and thereby undermine the whole concept of checks and balances. In this context, the Libby case is one more example of the complex inter-relatedness of administration policies and actions, and of their broader implication in the Bush-Cheney war policies.

The dangerous assumptions of the theory of unitary executive power have led to the President’s practice of appending “signing reservations” to legislation enacted by the Congress; the reservations are meant to indicate that the President has decided he is not legally bound to carry out any of the provisions of new legislation that he opposes. Further, this unitary theory has led to the illegal use of torture, violations of due process (particularly denial of habeas corpus) at Guantanamo Bay; the ghastly actions at Abu Ghraib; the CIA’s practice of “extraordinary rendition“ to transport detainees to countries where torture is standard operating procedure (such as in Egypt, a U.S. ally); and the massive use of surveillance of U.S. citizens, and other civil liberty violations. To camouflage these illegal and immoral practices, the administration protects itself with a cover of politically expedient and self-serving classification - and declassification - of documents (and E-mails), and the frequent invoking of “Presidential privilege”. (For a recent study of the legal and illegal aspects of governmental secrecy, see Presidential Secrecy and the Law by Robert Pallitto.)

Given these abuses and violations of the Constitution, and of U.S. and international law, more and more Americans are becoming profoundly concerned about the future of the republic and democratic government. Opponents of the administration include Democratic, Republican, and independent citizens. Even conservatives like Bruce Fein, the Reagan administration’s Deputy Associate Attorney General, and Paul Craig Roberts, Reagan’s former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, are alarmed about the Bush-Cheney administration. Recently Fein said that “the most conservative principle of the Founding Fathers was distrust of ‘unchecked power’”. He has called for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. Roberts, who was at one time an editor of the Wall Street Journal, has pleaded with Congress to protect American democracy by impeaching Bush and Cheney.

In spite of the opposition to the Iraq war which the voters expressed in November 2006, a majority of Republicans in Congress go right on supporting the President as he continues to devise tactics to avoid bringing home the troops. As for the Democrats, now holding a small majority, they appear to be moving very slowly and timidly to challenge the President over his Iraq war plans and his arrogant attitude toward the Congress. And so far they have shied away from even considering impeachment inquiries because of their worries over “political risks”. That leaves us only one hope, and that is the people. Citizens have the right to insist that governments must be held to their legal and moral obligation to serve the people. Without the people’s informed participation, checks and balances can never work properly.

True, Bush has made it clear again and again, that he is not impressed by polls, and that he will ignore as long as possible the majority’s expressed will to end the occupation and the war in Iraq. He continues in his illusion that only the Decider (based on his study of history?) knows what’s best – for the Middle East, for the nation, and indeed for the world. Yes, his carefully selected top generals, his phalanx of neo-conservatives headed by Cheney, his friends among the arms manufacturers and corporate beneficiaries of the ongoing war – all may support his illusions, but the people do not. In the dangerous crisis over the Vietnam war, the American people ultimately proved to be stronger than Presidents Johnson and Nixon. Given the choice between the will of Bush and the will of a majority of the people, I choose to stand with the people. It’s high time for Congress to make that same choice.

Poughkeepsie resident Dr. John J. Neumaier was president of SUNY New Paltz from 1968-72 and of Moorhead (Minn.) State University from 1958-68. He is philosophy professor emeritus of Empire State College, New York City. His column appears in the first Sunday Freeman of each month.

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