The Double-Edged Sword of the Imperial Presidency

By BJ

The Washington Post is reporting that Obama is set to hit the ground running in regards to reversing many of the none-to-popular Bush administration presidential decrees on things like stem cell research, climate change, and reproductive rights.

From what I can see, I don’t have any objections to the actual policy goals, which is why I probably see a lot of reactions like Hilzoy’s this morning.

These are wonderful changes. After the last eight years, the very idea that they might occur not as the result of a long drawn-out battle, but just like that, is amazing.

Sure, it is nice to see your chosen policy goals being enacted without all the fuss and muss of drawn-out Congressional battles, but must I remind everyone that it was Bush enacting his policy goals without consulting Congress that got a lot of us upset about how they were concentrating authority in the Executive Branch?

Now, I’m not going to complain too bitterly about Obama using the very same power to reverse the worst excesses of Bush’s administration, but ultimately we should be working to see that this kind of power in the Executive Branch is again constrained.  One of the arguments others and I always used to try and convince so-called conservatives that Bush’s usurpation of power wasn’t a good thing was to imagine that power being wielded by a liberal Democrat.  Obama’s more of a centrist, but to the far-right that counts as a radical leftist in most matters, so they will soon be getting a taste of what we were warning about, even if they fail to understand that it was their uncritical support of the Imperial Presidency principles that handed Obama the tools he will be using.

So the right is likely to suddenly rediscover the founder’s preference for checks and balances and rail incessantly against the powers they so happily supported accruing to their own guy.  Call them hypocrites if you wish, but note that it is the right position.

The old saw about power corrupting holds ever true, and with power shifting to the left in a couple of months, you can all but smell the salivating of those looking to use that power to do what they think of as good.  It is one of the reasons that it is far easier to accrue power to the government than it is to take it away.  Once in power, people want to use it, not give it up.  It is also why I figure under even the best of circumstances, the powers accumulated to the presidency under the Bush/Cheney years will never be fully dissipated, but we need to work hard to ensure that Obama replaces at least some of the checks and balances, even if it makes passing his agenda that much harder.

Because sooner or later, power will again shift, and someone whose agenda you don’t agree with will be sitting in the Oval Office, and if Obama simply continues Bush’s legacy, then all of those “wonderful changes” will disappear at the stroke of a pen, and what could replace them may be far, far worse.

Because as the founders could tell you, you don’t put checks and balances in place because you believe the current leader is a tyrant, you do so because you can’t guarantee that no tyrant will find his way to power in the future.

Whether or not the left remembers that in the coming months will be a test of their hypocrisy.

Comments

[Steve Hynd]

Spot on, BJ.

Regards, C

[Bilby]

"Whether or not the left remembers that in the coming months will be a test of their hypocrisy."

The test has already been failed.

"Now, I’m not going to complain too bitterly about Obama using the very same power to reverse the worst excesses of Bush’s administration, but ultimately we should be working to see that this kind of power in the Executive Branch is again constrained."

You want it constrained, but only after you get your policy preferences enacted.

[BJ Bjornson]

Check you reading comprehension Bilby, I only support a return to the status quo. Reversing what Bush wrought under this, more-or-less extralegal, authority is fair game, and even there I admit to some trepidation. The process is unfair whoever uses it, but it would also be unfair to let the changes Bush made under this authority stand and force Obama to take the long route to try and reverse them.

So for this one instance, I’m willing to see a President Obama to reverse changes that should never have been allowed in the first place. If he goes beyond that and starts enacting anything new, and I’m sure the temptation will be there, then he needs to be slapped down.

[Libby]

Well said BJ. My first impulse is to celebrate the use of the power to undo some of the damage as quickly as possible but you're right. The ultimate goal is to restore checks and balances and undo the unitary executive grab for power in the first place.

[mikkel]

I fail to see how this falls under "unitary executive grab." Most of the things that are listed added restrictions and interpretation that was not part of an original bill.

Some of the things I've heard discussed I believe Bush ordered things that were plain illegal either by refusing to implement constraints on his power or issuing orders that went directly against laws.

The opposite of not allowing aid to groups that offer abortion isn't removing the ban, it's to issue an order that groups must offer abortion services in order to get aid. Now that would be pushing a policy preference that didn't arise out of congressional authority.

Even the EPA thing I believe is a gray area because their advice does have legal force that the executive is supposed to uphold in some fashion. I'm not sure about that particular thing mentioned because we have such a hodgepodge of environmental laws. I know that administrations have a lot more leeway about global warming than air quality for instance.

I sincerely hope that Obama voluntarily reliquinshes executive power but except for a couple things (like mercury levels that were enacted by Clinton in his waning days that I assume Obama will redo) most of what they are talking about follows the letter of the law more accurately.