Cato: Bush in Ceaseless Power Grab

Cato, an ally of the President on the attempt to reform Social Security and on other issues, is not happy with the president:

Bush in ‘ceaseless push for power’, by Caroline Daniel, Financial Times: President George W. Bush had shown disdain and indifference for the US constitution by adopting an “astonishingly broad” view of presidential powers, a leading libertarian think-tank said on Monday.

The critique from the Cato Institute reflects growing criticism by conservatives about administration policy in areas such as the “war on terror” and undermining congressional power.

“The pattern that emerges is one of a ceaseless push for power, unchecked by either the courts or Congress, one in short of disdain for constitutional limits,” the report by legal scholars Gene Healy and Timothy Lynch concludes.

That view was echoed last week by former congressman Bob Barr, a Republican, who called on Congress to exercise “leadership by putting the constitution above party politics and insisting on the facts” in the debate over illegal domestic wiretapping of terrorist suspects.

On Thursday Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the judiciary committee, noted: “Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress.” ...

The more serious charges concern Mr Bush’s actions in the “war on terror”. Citing a 1977 interview with President Richard Nixon, who said, “Well, when the president does it, that means it is not illegal”, the report argues that the administration’s public and private arguments for untrammelled executive power “comes perilously close to that view”.

The authors cite spying by the National Security Agency and the “torture memos”, produced by the Department of Justice to defend the authority of the president over interrogation techniques. “The constitution’s text will not support anything like the doctrine of presidential absolutism the administration flirts with in the torture memos.”

Here's summary of and a link to Cato's report:

Executive Summary

In recent judicial confirmation battles, President Bush has repeatedly—and correctly—stressed fidelity to the Constitution as the key qualification for service as a judge. It is also the key qualification for service as the nation's chief executive. ... With five years of the Bush administration behind us, we have more than enough evidence to make an assessment about the president's commitment to our fundamental legal charter

Unfortunately, far from defending the Constitution, President Bush has repeatedly sought to strip out the limits the document places on federal power. In its official legal briefs and public actions, the Bush administration has advanced a view of federal power that is astonishingly broad, a view that includes

• a federal government empowered to regulate core political speech—and restrict it greatly when it counts the most: in the days before a federal election;
• a president who cannot be restrained, through validly enacted statutes, from pursuing any tactic he believes to be effective in the war on terror;
• a president who has the inherent constitutional authority to designate American citizens suspected of terrorist activity as "enemy combatants," strip them of any constitutional protection, and lock them up without charges for the duration of the war on terror— in other words, perhaps forever; and 
• a federal government with the power to supervise virtually every aspect of American life, from kindergarten, to marriage, to the grave.

President Bush's constitutional vision is, in short, sharply at odds with the text, history, and structure of our Constitution, which authorizes a government of limited powers. Full Text (PDF, 318 KB)

Comments

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/opinion/l30gitmo.html

Scientists Speak Out About Guantánamo

To the Editor:

We are deeply concerned that without serious debate, the United States has crossed the limits of acceptable practices in the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other sites. The secrecy and the disdain for international law and opinion are contrary to the very ideals that our country has long stood and fought for.

We are told that our country is being protected by locking up dangerous terrorists in isolated facilities in order to make us accept a breakdown of our own laws. But we do not know - indeed, we have not been allowed any way of finding out - if the individual prisoners are enemy combatants, Al Qaeda suspects or innocents unlucky enough to have been caught in a blind sweep.

It is one of the most fundamental principles of a democracy that all accused should be tried without unreasonable delays and freed if innocent. In no case do our moral principles permit humiliating and degrading treatment.

The administration has cynically used fear to justify behavior that the civilized world has long considered criminal.

Although this is not a scientific issue in the usual sense, we feel that to ignore it would be to abdicate our responsibility to the truth. Therefore, we have felt compelled to speak out against human rights violations, including those committed by Americans. We are asking all people of good will to join us in demanding a quick return to our country's great traditions.

All writers are members of the National Academy of Sciences.

Leonard Susskind
Professor of Physics, Stanford University
Palo Alto, Calif., April 19, 2006

Michael Aizenman
Professor of Mathematical Physics, Princeton University

James Bjorken
Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, Stanford University

Stanley Deser
Professor of Physics, Brandeis University

Freeman Dyson
Professor of Physics, Institute for Advanced Study

Mary K. Galliard
Professor of Physics, University of California at Berkeley

David Gross
Professor of Physics, University of California
Winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics

Leo Kadanoff
Professor of Physics and Mathematics, University of Chicago

Walter Kohn
Professor of Chemistry, University of California at Santa Barbara
Winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Elliot Lieb
Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Princeton University

Joel Lebowitz
Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Rutgers University

Douglas Osheroff
Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Stanford University
Winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics

Joseph Polchinski
Professor of Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara

Edwin Salpeter
Emeritus Professor of the Physical Sciences, Cornell University

John H. Schwarz
Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology

Frank Wilczek
Professor of Physics, M.I.T.
Winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics

Edward Witten
Professor of Mathematical Physics, Institute for Advanced Study

Richard Zare
Professor in Natural Sciences, Stanford University

Bruno Zumino
Emeritus Professor of Particle Theory, University of California at Berkeley

[anne]

There is much comfort to be taken in the modest but firm public effort by a number of the most accomplished American scientists to protest the erosion of an American ethic by Administration policies. There is American ethics realized.

[anne]

The war and occupation of Iraq have been terrible physical and psychological and material losses for America, but there has been a moral loss that is profound as well.

says...

"We are told that our country is being protected by locking up dangerous terrorists in isolated facilities in order to make us accept a breakdown of our own laws."

Pray tell me, what are those rascal neo-cons at the PNAC up to. Are they hoping, waiting(planning?) for a COG event?

[anne]

"Although this is not a scientific issue in the usual sense, we feel that to ignore it would be to abdicate our responsibility to the truth. Therefore, we have felt compelled to speak out against human rights violations, including those committed by Americans. We are asking all people of good will to join us in demanding a quick return to our country's great traditions."

There is the American tradition.

[a]

Anne, saw the Stephen Colbert "kicking asses" at the While House Correspondet Dinner on Sat Night?

It is fun. Video's are available here:
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/

and a brief sescription from E&P Staff
========================================
Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk-show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face — “and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, just three tables away from Karl Rove, and that he had brought " Valerie Plame." Then, worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean ... he brought Joseph Wilson's wife." He might have "dodged the bullet," he said, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't there.

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, melting glaciers and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face. He advised the crowd, "if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail. "

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened Tuesday."

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides of the story — the president’s side and the vice president’s side." In another slap at the news channel, he said: "I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the No Fact Zone. Fox News, I own the copyright on that term."

He also reflected on the alleged good old days for the president, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know -- fiction."

He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush's new press secretary is "Snow Job."

Colbert closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special “Gannon” button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.

[anne]

"Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire."

There is always always a solution :)

[anne]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301014_pf.html

April 24, 2006

Bush's Thousand Days
By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy. But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term -- days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure [emphasis added]. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' "

This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don't . However, both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike against the Soviet Union in Cuba.

It was lucky that JFK was determined to get the missiles out peacefully, because only decades later did we discover that the Soviet forces in Cuba had tactical nuclear weapons and orders to use them to repel a U.S. invasion. This would have meant a nuclear exchange. Instead, JFK used his own thousand days to give the American University speech, a powerful plea to Americans as well as to Russians to reexamine "our own attitude -- as individuals and as a nation -- for our attitude is as essential as theirs." This was followed by the limited test ban treaty. It was compatible with the George Kennan formula -- containment plus deterrence -- that worked effectively to avoid a nuclear clash.

The Cuban missile crisis was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in all human history. Never before had two contending powers possessed between them the technical capacity to destroy the planet. Had there been exponents of preventive war in the White House, there probably would have been nuclear war. It is certain that nuclear weapons will be used again. Henry Adams, the most brilliant of American historians, wrote during our Civil War, "Some day science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race shall commit suicide by blowing up the world."

But our Cold War presidents kept to the Kennan formula of containment plus deterrence, and we won the Cold War without escalating it into a nuclear war. Enter George W. Bush as the great exponent of preventive war. In 2003, owing to the collapse of the Democratic opposition, Bush shifted the base of American foreign policy from containment-deterrence to presidential preventive war: Be silent; I see it, if you don't. Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose. But, as Lincoln observed in his second inaugural address, "The Almighty has His own purposes."

There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war (also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war....

[camille roy]

The thank you site for stephen colbert has a link to a story that is a real shocker. I'm flabbergasted it hasn't been reported before:
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

A must-read.
The lead:
President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

[anne]

To explain more clearly, during the Reagan Administration several lawyers set forth the idea that the President in accepting and signing legislation from Congress could make a signing statement that would be taken as a proper interpretation of the legislation by administrators and courts. Reagan did not use the idea, but the Bush Administration has made use of the idea and signing statements are continually made for this purpose. Essentially Bush is telling Congress and us what the law is no matter the Congressional intent.

[anne]

The lawyer most associated with the signing statement interpretation is, of course, Samuel Alito. For this reason above all, the New York Times and I opposed the confirmation to the Supreme Court.

[anne]

We are in effect watching an Administration challenge the constituted separation of powers. This is a reason I have argued that the artificial unity about the war and occupation in Iraq has contributed to a moral dilemma for America.

[a]

Perhaps it is also mostly due to the Congress, Senate and Whilte house are all occupaied by the same party.

Getting back the congress or senate would be a start to force White House to obey the laws.

[anne]

Interesting, but I would add occupied by a party that had formed a distinct ideological rather than policy base before gaining a majority. We have not found this before as far as I can tell, beyond the awful political ideology justifying slavery, for American politics has been so largely pragmatic.

[Robert]

This is a reason I have argued that the artificial unity about the war and occupation in Iraq has contributed to a moral dilemma for America.

...artifical as in "you're either with us or against us" and if you're against us, we'll knee-cap you or or those dear to you??? Or artificial as in "i am too afraid to seen by my constituents as a weenie on national security issues"?

[anne]

Clever comment, as always, but artificial as in the initial response to Colonel John Murtha, who was told in Congress that "cowards cut and run," to simply being asked when leaving Iraq is suggested whether that means "cutting and running," to turning from war as timelessly typed as of bravado and enviable swagger.

[calmo]

The media/press complicity that Colbert makes fun of, no worse --that the media/press allow Colbert to make fun of, is a testament to how much further along we are than the new arrivals who are demonstrating for their beliefs and aspirations.
We consume Colbert as we do any comedian. That is unless he is deemed 'unconsumable' like Trudeau (mid 2004) and then 160 papers no longer carry this humor. You think that's funny?

[anne]

Remember, that the limiting of separation of powers is in favor of the Presidency. That should remind of the the wish of the President for a line-item veto ability. The Supreme Court refused such a law earlier as too much limiting Congressional capability, but another such law is being sought. I am completely against a line-item veto.

[a]

NYT and most mainstream media did not find the Colbert speech at the dinner funny (but once again ,the Blogosphere begs to differ):

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html?
ei=5090&en=6586b30be2b4067c&ex=1304308800&
partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
============
After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive With the Sound of Colbert Chatter
By JACQUES STEINBERG

Mark Smith, a reporter for The Associated Press who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges that he had not seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual black-tie dinner on Saturday night. But he says he knew enough about Mr. Colbert — "He not only skewers politicians, he skewers those of us in the media" — to expect that he would cause some good-natured discomfort among the 2,600 guests, many of them politicians and reporters.

What Mr. Smith did not anticipate, he said, was that Mr. Colbert's nearly 20-minute address would become one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere. Mr. Colbert delivered his remarks in character as the Bill O'Reillyesque commentator he plays on "The Colbert Report," although this time his principal foil, President Bush, was just a few feet away.

"There was nothing he said where I would have leapt up to say, 'Stop,' " said Mr. Smith, who introduced Mr. Colbert and sat near him on the dais. "I thought he was very funny," Mr. Smith added, though there was hardly consensus on that point yesterday.

At issue was a heavily nuanced, often ironic performance by Mr. Colbert, who got in many licks at the president — on the invasion of Iraq, on the administration's penchant for secrecy, on domestic eavesdropping — with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but. And all this after Mr. Colbert tried, at the outset, to soften up the president by mocking his intelligence, saying that he and Mr. Bush were "not so different," by which he meant, he explained, "we're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol."

"Now I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating," Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. "But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking 'in reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

That line got a relatively warm laugh, but many others were met with near silence. In one such instance, he criticized reporters for likening Mr. Bush's recent staff changes to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." "This administration is not sinking," Mr. Colbert said; "this administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg."

In an online survey begun yesterday, the snarky Web site Gawker sought to boil down the matter to its essence by asking readers to vote on whether they thought Mr. Colbert's performance, broadcast live on C-Span and since then widely available on the Internet, was "one of the most patriotic acts I've witnessed of any individual" or "not really that funny."

Meanwhile, on its Web site, the trade journal Editor & Publisher posted more than a dozen letters from readers under a headline that reflected the broad range of electronic opinion: "Colbert Offensive, Colbert Mediocre, Colbert a Hero, Colbert Vicious, Colbert Brave." Mr. Colbert's employer, Comedy Central, said it had received nearly 2,000 e-mail messages by Monday morning — a response, it said, rivaled only by the contentious appearance nearly two years ago of Jon Stewart, Mr. Colbert's comedy patron, on the now-defunct CNN shout-fest "Crossfire."

Others chided the so-called mainstream media, including The New York Times, which ignored Mr. Colbert's remarks while writing about the opening act, a self-deprecating bit Mr. Bush did with a Bush impersonator.

Some, though, saw nothing more sinister in the silence of news organizations than a decision to ignore a routine that, to them, just was not funny.

"I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan, a huge Bush detractor, and I think the White House press corps has been out to lunch for much of the last five years," Noam Scheiber wrote by way of introduction on the New Republic's Web site. But a few lines later he said: "I laughed out loud maybe twice during Colbert's entire 20-odd minute routine. Colbert's problem, blogosphere conspiracy theories notwithstanding, is that he just wasn't very entertaining."

In addition to the challenge of coming after the president and his doppelgänger, Mr. Colbert struggled to find common comedic ground in a room that included politicians across the ideological spectrum, as well as reporters and Hollywood stars. In that sense, he was in good company: many of his recent predecessors — who have included Cedric the Entertainer, Jay Leno, Mr. Stewart, Ray Romano and Al Franken — were knocked, at least in some quarters, for falling flat.

"It's very, very tricky," Mr. Franken, a Democrat who played the dinner twice during the Clinton years but was not there on Saturday, said in an interview. "I thought that what Stephen did was very admirable."

Mary Matalin, a Republican who has served the Bush White House as assistant to the president and counselor to the vice president, had a different take.

"This was predictable, Bush-bashing kind of humor," Ms. Matalin, who was there, said in an interview. Of Mr. Colbert, she said, "Because he is who he is, and everyone likes him, I think this room thought he was going to be more sophisticated and creative."

Mr. Colbert declined through a "Colbert Report" spokeswoman to comment yesterday. Similarly, another Colbert target, Mr. Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, said he had no comment, including on reports that Mr. Bush had appeared irritated by the end of Mr. Colbert's speech.

"We'll let others be the entertainment critics," Mr. McClellan said by phone from the White House. "I know better than to insert myself into that one."

[DJM]

My take on the Colbert routine is that it may have gone on a little long for those on the receiving end, but only because the people there were shocked ( ! ) to hear so much "truthiness".

".....his talk-show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly...... with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but."

The best part of the fact that it happened with the Shrub just a few feet away is evidence that there was an "intelligence failure" on the part of the Whitehouse staff who don't usually let an opposing view get so close to their mans ego....don't you wonder how many heads rolled once the unsmiling Prez-idiot left the range of TV cameras?
"Mark Smith, a reporter for The Associated Press who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges that he had not seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual black-tie dinner on Saturday night......"