The Unitary Executive: Is The Doctrine Behind the Bush Presidency ...

[scubadude]

Consistent with a Democratic State?
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN
----
Monday, Jan. 09, 2006

When President Bush signed the new law, sponsored by Senator McCain, restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees, he also issued a Presidential signing statement. That statement asserted that his power as Commander-in-Chief gives him the authority to bypass the very law he had just signed.

This news came fast on the heels of Bush's shocking admission that, since 2002, he has repeatedly authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance without a warrant, in flagrant violation of applicable federal law.

And before that, Bush declared he had the unilateral authority to ignore the Geneva Conventions and to indefinitely detain without due process both immigrants and citizens as enemy combatants.

All these declarations echo the refrain Bush has been asserting from the outset of his presidency. That refrain is simple: Presidential power must be unilateral, and unchecked.

But the most recent and blatant presidential intrusions on the law and Constitution supply the verse to that refrain. They not only claim unilateral executive power, but also supply the train of the President's thinking, the texture of his motivations, and the root of his intentions.

--more-- http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20060109_bergen.html

[kurth]

1. Unitary Plenary Urinary Planetary

Yes, the Constitution says right here: President is Lawmaker Sheriff Judge Jury Executioner.

Goddamned traitorous fascist pigs.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. It is the duty of Congress to keep da Prez under control

Above the law
President to Congress: "I'll obey the law when and as I choose."

Actually, with reference to torture, he wrote:

"The executive branch shall construe Title X in Division A of the Act, relating to detainees, in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President to supervise the unitary executive branch and as Commander in Chief and consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the President, evidenced in Title X, of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks."



Translated, that means the same things.

The Founding Fathers did not intend to create a president with absolute military authority. They very specifically divided those powers between the president and Congress. Commander-in-Chief does not mean what President Bush seems to think it means.

Not that this is news.

Yes, we have a "unitary executive branch," but we also have a bicameral legislative branch which passed a law, and he just signed it. That means he's bound by it all the time, not just when he feels like it. He and his subordinates are forbidden from torturing people, just as they are forbidden from ordering ethnic cleansing, summary executions, or wholesale invasions of foreign countries. Not because of the president's good graces, but because Congress has the power to regulate the military.


by Josh Rosenau

http://jgrr.blogspot.com/2006/01/above-law.html

[DemonFighterLives]

3. dubby is trying to play out his dictator wet dreams

the boy is pretty high on himself.
:silly:

[brook]

4. What I can't understand...

is why isn't this being circulated, discussed and debated in the media and in every coffee shop in every corner of the country? It seems to me that no matter what party one belongs to one would be able to grasp the danger *&co presents to the continuation of the United States as envisioned by the Founders.

I don't consider myself much of an extremist - but I have never been as fearful of our future as I have become in the last 5 years.

[ladjf]

5. It would only take about 15 Republicans, who respected the U.S.

more than the Republican party to turn this around immediately. Where are those 15 people? Do they exist?

[kohodog]

6. unitary executive = dictator

Seriously, what's the difference? If Bush gets to ignore the law and constitution and can arrest, torture and spy on anyone he chooses, all in the name of national security, how is he different from any other despot?

The rhetoric on dissent is being turned up and that worries me. Also the rash of news stories about peace groups being infiltrated and monitored seem to be increasing. Now it also looks increasingly that Alito will be confirmed and will undoubtedly rule in favor of increasing the power of the executive branch. Roberts has already tipped his hand prior to being confirmed.

[WinkyDink]

7. There is no such law.

It is totally George W. Bush wanting what he wants.
Period.
There is nothing governmental about it; it is strictly personal and psychopathological.

[alfredo]

8. Look no further than the philosophy of

Leo Strauss.

http://tinyurl.com/b4otf

A review that can be helpful:

The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.

According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power.

Maybe we can drive a wedge between the Christian right and the republicans by linking the Republicans to Strauss and his humanistic, God is dead, beliefs.

[brook]

9. You may be onto...

something. I've been trying to tell people about Strauss, too.

[alfredo]

10. They use religion as a tool of control, but they don't believe

themselves.

We need a way to frame this for wider consumption.

[donkeyotay]

11. It must be in the Constitution

The part where they said, "Well, we worked really hard on this here document, but it's all really moot because actually the commander in chief can do anything he wants to see, because he's the commander in chief. All he has to do is get some loser, law-school closet fascist to WRITE A MEMO, and then just pretend that it's the law, see?

You all are just a big focus group, so get used to it. Welcome our newest members, the congress and the courts.