Pruning Shears

A look at where some of the candidates stand.

First, Hillary Clinton to the Boston Globe: 

Hillary Clinton said yesterday that if she is elected president, she intends to roll back President Bush’s expansion of executive authority, including his use of presidential signing statements to put his own interpretation on bills passed by Congress or to claim authority to disobey them entirely.
“I think you have to restore the checks and balances and the separation of powers, which means reining in the presidency,” Clinton told the Boston Globe’s editorial board.

 And then this:

“The power grab undertaken by the Bush-Cheney administration has gone much further than any other president and has been sustained for longer,” she said. “Other presidents, like Lincoln, have had to take on extraordinary powers but would later go to Congress for either ratification or rejection.”

Ms Clinton said the accumulation of executive power had put America into “new territory” because Mr Bush and the vice president had taken the view that were what previously extraordinary powers were now inherent powers that belonged to the White House.

“I think I’m going to have to review everything they’ve done, because I’ve been on the receiving end of that,” she said. Ms Clinton stated it was “absolutely” conceivable that, as president, she would give up executive powers in the name of constitutional principle.

“That has to be part of the review I undertake when I get to the White House, and I intend to do that,” she said.

Some details would be nice.  She doesn’t deserve any credit until we get something a little more concrete.  At least she’s mouthing the right words, which is more than we can say for Fred Thompson:

Thompson said he sides with the Bush administration in its struggle with Congress over “issues of surveillance,” but he suggested in some of the cases on detainees that have been ruled upon by the Supreme Court he sides with the Congress.

Asked if there are any examples where you would side with the Congress over the executive branch in the past few years, Thompson said, “well, the courts have decided against the executive branch in some instances.”

And you agree with the courts? I asked.

“Well, I can’t lump everything together,” he said. “I don’t think anybody ought to be rubberstamped. No president should be rubber-stamped. But you have to stand firm in executive authority. All the executive authority rests in the president. So the cards are on the table and Congress is involved. And Congress can refuse funding to anything they have such strong disagreement with. You can’t just carp and criticize and go to court each time. You have to step up to the plate, and say, we’re going to cut off funding.”

Thompson sees the power of the purse as Congress’s “constitutional duty.” Disagree with something the executive branch is doing — cut off funding, he said.

“Each branch has its legitimate positions and the lines are clear in terms of their responsibilities,” he said as we drove from Medley, Florida, to Fort Lauderdale. “The president is commander in chief. He has to stand strong for executive authority, because we’ve only got one president. Especially in times of conflict or emergency. On the other hand, Congress has an oversight responsibility. And I’ve been a part of that, in more than one occasion. Ultimately, if they disagree strongly enough with what the executive branch is doing, they can cut off funding for it.”

That’s a case study in double talk.  Can’t rubber stamp, constitutional duty, legitimate positions and clear responsibilities.  Unfortunately the only one he enumerates for Congress is cutting off funding.  If that’s all he can say about Congress’ role then he doesn’t believe it’s a coequal branch.  His response is insulting.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel we go from insulting to scary.   Rudy Giuliani is no mealy-mouthed hedger; he’s a straight-up authoritarian.  Rachel Morris has a great article here (hat tip Prairie Weather) and keep in mind this is hardly the alpha and the omega on the subject, just a good primer.  FYI in my next career as a plagiarist I will claim the following as my own:

One of the weaknesses in the American form of government is that a leader, if determined enough, can thwart the constitutional checks on his power. The Founders weren’t omniscient, and the governing apparatus they devised contains weak points that require a degree of good faith from its participants if the system is to work. In the past, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon, even the most forceful presidents didn’t subvert the system of checks and balances as a matter of ideology or routine. Bush, Cheney, and Giuliani are different from each other in many ways, but they are alike in their scorn for the separation of powers.

Finally, an idle question:  Why is it that the people who have trouble keeping straight “Obama” and “Osama” don’t have the same problem with “Rudolph” and “Adolph”?