1970s Flashbacks
Do we need more than one branch of government?

Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune has a great piece called Beyond the imperial presidency . Below are some excerpts:

President Bush is a bundle of paradoxes. He thinks the scope of the federal government should be limited but the powers of the president should not. He wants judges to interpret the Constitution as the framers did, but doesn't think he should be constrained by their intentions.

He attacked Al Gore for trusting government instead of the people, but he insists anyone who wants to defeat terrorism must put absolute faith in the man at the helm of government.

His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."

But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.

I noticed, in another column, a warning to Republicans about how such expanded executive power could end up in the hands of Hilliary Clinton. Right or left, unchecked presidential power scares the heck out of me.