Too Much Executive Power

There is a very interesting article out there in the New York Times Op/Ed pages. It asks the question if there is too much power in the executive branch of the American government, and certainly leans towards answering in the affirmative.

I agree with it, for the most part.

This also appears as yet further proof that the ridiculous rewarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to a President that abuses these was not just premature, it was an outrage.

What had Obama done to that point to receive such a distinction? Had he, like Mandela, endured decades of enslavement, and overcome an unfair and militant government, to establish a peaceful transition to "one man, one vote" democracy? Had he, like Jimmy Carter, successfully negotiated a Mideast Peace treaty as President, or done something comparable to putting himself in dangerous places to negotiate peace, as Carter has done in his post-Presidency? Had he, like Martin Luther King, Jr., tirelessly advocated nonviolence in the face of violent response, to effect positive change and greater equality? Had he ended wars, or at least tried?

No, actually, none of those. What had he done? He had been elected President. Sure, he represented "hope and change", quite famously. Yet, the very fact that he inspired this spirit itself seems indicative that either (a), he was able to manipulate people into believing what they wanted to believe about him and/or (b) people went ahead and believed what they wanted to believe anyway, and essentially handed him the status of dreamy savior for our times. Either way, it was dangerous to give someone so much power, literally and figuratively, and to, in effect, suspend all disbelief in order to believe in the dream.

And a dream is what it was. Not only did the American electorate reward this man the Presidency, they rewarded him with virtual divinity status. The Nobel Committee followed that up, very early in his Presidency, rewarding him the supposedly prestigious Peace Prize.

Why? He had stopped the war in Iraq, right? Well, not exactly. But he stopped the war in Afghanistan? No, actually, he stepped up our involvement there. He successfully negotiated peace in the Middle East, or at least somewhere on the globe. Nope. Actually, he did not do that, either.

So, why did he win?

I think I know. Because he is not George W. Bush.

Don't get me wrong. I am certainly not defending George W. Bush here. What I am also not doing is praising a self-serving, ambitious politician with a sense of entitlement the size of a mountain.

Since taking office, Obama has proven not to be worthy of all the false hope that people placed in him, rather blindly. He said that he would shut down Guantanamo. He did not. He said that Americans did not torture, and was opposed to it during the Bush years. Did he put a solid stop to the practice? Nope, not so much. He said that he would stop the war in Iraq. Officially, he did. Yet, American troops remained for quite some time afterwards. It appears that troops in Afghanistan will see something similar next year.

What has Obama done? Well, obviously as President, he has done many things. But the ones perhaps that his supporters should take note of, and stop making excuses for, are the drone attacks, and the signing of the NDAA, which effectively suspended the constitutional right of habeas corpus.

That is the problem, of course, with having mediocrity on both ends. In the endless tug of war between the two parties, it really is the lesser of two evils or, as I have heard it referred to as well, the evil of two lessers. When one man from one party proves to be horrendous, such as George W. Bush, than the next guy from the other party who finally gets in can do no wrong, according to far too many people. They might not admit this outright, of course. But in reality, they do not scrutinize Obama nearly as closely as they did Bush. Obama can, and does, get away with whatever he wants to get away with. If the NDAA had been signed by President George W. Bush's hands, do you think Democrats and other Obama supporters would have been so quiet about it?

That was what worried me during the 2008 campaign, when that truly positive spirit, and misplaced sense of hope, was what Obama seemed to represent for far too many. he could do no wrong.

Yes, that level of enthusiasm has died off, for the most part. Even his supporters were not nearly so electrified by him as they had been back then.

The man actively campaigned for the Presidency, and the American people, or at least the electorate, latched on to every word. They gave him their support, and their hopes for the future.

I do not, and will not, demonize him like many of his opponents have done. I recognize that he is not at fault for the poor economy that he was handed, and which he borrowed money in order to try and revive. I recognize that he is not at fault for not balancing a budget that Republicans suddenly harped on, although they ignored how important it was when they themselves failed to balance it during the long years of Bush, during which time, the Republicans controlled all three branches of government for the vast majority of his two terms in office. I recognize that it was Bush, not Obama, that got our hands tied in two never ending wars, and that exaggerations about "war" in Libya was an overly convenient comparison to the inexcusable invasion of Iraq, in a war we entered with no exit strategy, and that it was Bush who seemed to be picking even more fights at the time.

Yet, the fact that Bush was worse, and infinitely worse at that, does not mean that we should allow Obama to receive our undying support no matter what. He has abused his executive power, and that is something that we Americans need to recognize. It is not because we feared a White House occupied by Romney (or worse, Perry, or Santorum, or perhaps others in the Republican field in 2012), that this man should get off scot free. After all, the President, like all elected officials, is a public servant. Not a king to rule over us. A public servant. He is supposed to serve our best interests.

Frankly, as far as I am concerned, this President has failed in that capacity, at least so far.

Has he failed as miserably as George W. Bush?

No, of course not. But are our standards now so low, have we lowered the bar so far, that this is really a cause for celebration? That he is not as bad as his predecessor?

What is it about us Americans that has us seemingly putting aside our thinking and objectivity when it is the guy that we can relate to, and criticizing everything when it is the guy that we cannot feel that we relate to?

To my mind's eye, we are missing the point of what public servants are supposed to be about. The last few Presidents are men who took an oath to serve the American people. They promised to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States". Have they done that? Bush was widely criticized for trampling on the Constitution, and Obama seems to have followed in his footsteps readily enough. I did not think it was justified under Bush, a Republican. But that does not mean that it is any better or more justifiable when it is done under Obama, a Democrat. I don't care if he was initially opposed to it, or that he acted disappointed, or like he did not really believe in what he was doing, when he signed that NDAA into law. The fact of the matter is, what he did goes against the grain of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights. That is not just some theoretical political difference of opinion. That is abuse of power, and it has happened consistently in the White House, but particularly in recent decades, and perhaps especially with these last two presidents.

In other words, we are going in the wrong direction, regardless of party affiliation.

Yet, I am not so sure that it is these two Presidents in particular, or the direction this country has been going in general for several decades, manifesting itself slowly, but surely. Perhaps it really became obvious during the Nixon years, when tapes were famously withheld, although Nixon's popularity at least suffered for it. That was not true when Reagan sold weapons to an enemy nation, or during the S&L scandal. He left office with the highest approval ratings ever at the time. The man that took that particular distinction away from him, Clinton, got rid of the Glass-Steagall Act. Also, it should be noted that both Reagan and Clinton were known as the "Teflon President" during their terms in office, and there was a good reason for this.

More recently, we had Bush, who's popularity suffered for many of the huge mistakes that he made. Yet, the list of scandals, most of them involving the corporate culture in some manner or other. During his long years in office, there were scandals involving multiple corporations (Enron, Haliburton, Blackwater), no-bid contracts, unprecedented levels of secrecy (this was defended by many supporters, but it seems to me that you only keep secrets if you have something to hide). Then there was the ridiculously named PATRIOT Act. And don't get me started on what was proposed for Patriot Act II, which thankfully, was never passed - it would have included, among other things, the government's ability to strip someone of American citizenship if they criticized the government too much! Now, that is really bordering on outright fascism, and was perhaps the most chilling thing the Bush regime ever was involved with, at least domestically. Rather inexplicably, a lot of people don't seem to recall this, let alone believe it! So, in case you are skeptical, here is one article by CNN that expands on it:

http://articles.cnn.com/2003-03-06/justice/findlaw.analysis.mariner.patriotII_1_citizenship-fourteenth-amendment-domestic-security-enhancement-act?_s=PM:LAW.

Also, you can find more at the following websites:

www.infowars.com/print/patriot_act/alexs_analysis.htm

www.aclu.org › Keep America Safe and Free

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_Security_Enhancement_Act_of_2003

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act,_Title_II

www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patriot_Act_II

www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/02/57636

www.gunowners.org/patriotii.htm

Bush and his team also famously tried to make exceptions to the Geneva Convention, and actively tried to redefine torture, so that some practices would become permissible. There was a shift of power to favor the executive branch of government at the expense of the other two branches, something that some felt was a betrayal of the principle of the system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers had put in place, to keep each branch honest.

Now, of course, we have Obama, who spoke out loudly against many of these excesses during his predecessor's tenure as a candidate, but as President, he has effectively kept way too many of these things in place. Obama certainly has not tried to shift more power back into Congress, reversing Bush's grab for more executive power, and his signing the NDAA into law is hardly a minor matter. That went directly against the grain of what he swore an oath in office to protect, and yet, he gets away with it. Some of his supporters conveniently make no mention of it, and support him fully, without any measure of scrutiny. Obama has taken advantage of that, and it almost seems that recent Presidents are pushing the envelope, seeing how much they can get away with. We, the people, are sending the  wrong message in allowing this to happen so easily. After all, they are the ones that took the oath to serve us, not the other way around.

In general, this article illustrates that, far from restraining himself, Obama seems to be embracing this power, utilizing it to the fullest while the opportunity is there, before any chance exists of coming up with some guidelines.

Read this op/ed piece from the New York Times, and see if they do not make a valid point, that the President (not just Bush, but yes, this President) has too much power, and abuses it.



Too Much Power for a President

The New York Times Editorial Page

May 30, 2012

It has been clear for years that the Obama administration believes the shadow war on terrorism gives it the power to choose targets for assassination, including Americans, without any oversight. On Tuesday, The New York Times revealed who was actually making the final decision on the biggest killings and drone strikes: President Obama himself. And that is very troubling.

Mr. Obama has demonstrated that he can be thoughtful and farsighted, but, like all occupants of the Oval Office, he is a politician, subject to the pressures of re-election. No one in that position should be able to unilaterally order the killing of American citizens or foreigners located far from a battlefield — depriving Americans of their due-process rights — without the consent of someone outside his political inner circle.

How can the world know whether the targets chosen by this president or his successors are truly dangerous terrorists and not just people with the wrong associations? (It is clear, for instance, that many of those rounded up after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks weren’t terrorists.) How can the world know whether this president or a successor truly pursued all methods short of assassination, or instead — to avoid a political charge of weakness — built up a tough-sounding list of kills?

It is too easy to say that this is a natural power of a commander in chief. The United States cannot be in a perpetual war on terror that allows lethal force against anyone, anywhere, for any perceived threat. That power is too great, and too easily abused, as those who lived through the George W. Bush administration will remember.

Mr. Obama, who campaigned against some of those abuses in 2008, should remember. But the Times article, written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, depicts him as personally choosing every target, approving every major drone strike in Yemen and Somalia and the riskiest ones in Pakistan, assisted only by his own aides and a group of national security operatives. Mr. Obama relies primarily on his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan.  

To his credit, Mr. Obama believes he should take moral responsibility for these decisions, and he has read the just-war theories of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

The Times article points out, however, that the Defense Department is currently killing suspects in Yemen without knowing their names, using criteria that have never been made public. The administration is counting all military-age males killed by drone fire as combatants without knowing that for certain, assuming they are up to no good if they are in the area. That has allowed Mr. Brennan to claim an extraordinarily low civilian death rate that smells more of expediency than morality.

In a recent speech, Mr. Brennan said the administration chooses only those who pose a real threat, not simply because they are members of Al Qaeda, and prefers to capture suspects alive. Those assurances are hardly binding, and even under Mr. Obama, scores of suspects have been killed but only one taken into American custody. The precedents now being set will be carried on by successors who may have far lower standards. Without written guidelines, they can be freely reinterpreted.  

A unilateral campaign of death is untenable. To provide real assurance, President Obama should publish clear guidelines for targeting to be carried out by nonpoliticians, making assassination truly a last resort, and allow an outside court to review the evidence before placing Americans on a kill list. And it should release the legal briefs upon which the targeted killing was based.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/opinion/too-much-power-for-a-president.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

http://militarybases.com/overseas/iraq/