Critics of President Bush talk a lot about his abuses of power, the increasing opacity and corruption of the federal government under his management and his theory of presidential power which owes much more to foreign philosophers and political scientists than the text and history of the United States constitution. But is this more than a sound-bite and political cudgel? As long as President Bush is in office and even more so before this year when he still possessed unified control of the federal government, it was enough simply to oppose his war on the constitution. But the virus of anti-constitutionalism President Bush has injected into the body politic is now so deepseated that a renewed constitutionalism should now be a central element informing our political priorities and political identification.
Garry Wills gets us into some of this with his weekend editorial on the militarization of our politics as expressed through the increasingly ubiquitous references to the president of “commander-in-chief”, as though this were the principle basis of his authority as president. A quarter of a century ago Ronald Reagan got this underway (or perhaps further advanced it along) with his penchant for saluting Marines after he got off Marine One — the Marine helicopter the president uses to fly to Andrews Air Force Base — a habit every subsequent president has adopted, but something no previous president did. That was symbolic and campy. But under President Bush it has led to the president assuming to himself what amount to discretionary dictatorial powers
To approach this subject candidly and forthrightly we need to recognize, as Wills does, that some of the militarization of our politics and constitutional disfiguration traces back to the beginnings of the Cold War. But I think Wills understates the qualitative expansion of anti-constitutionalism in the last 6 years, if sometimes only at the level of pretension rather than in execution (signing statements being a good example of this).
But if we’re interested in evaluating candidates for high office on the basis of their constitutionalism, what are some of the key points, planks and issues?
In no particular order but to start a conversation …
1. Abuse of presidential signing statements.
2. Use of the president’s ‘commander-in-chief’ powers to invade the realm of civilian politics.
3. Attacks on habeas corpus, general evasion of oversight by the federal judiciary.
What are the other key points? To me, most of the issue stems from item #2, the over-great pretensions of the president based on the idea that his ‘commander-in-chief’ powers extend beyond control of the military into the civilian realm as well. On a softer level, we might include the tendency to politicize the military and the federal administration of justice and the increasing reliance on government secrecy. Historically, the presidency has been a great bulwark of progressive change in this country. So key to my mind is to preserve a powerful executive while instituting a renewed respect for the limits to presidential power. The heart of the matter is that the current president and his court poet lawyers see the constitution principally as a problem to be worked around to release the president’s untrammelled power. Fundamentally, they’re against the US constitution and outside the traditions of American history.
What do you think the key points are? And what would be the planks of a revived constitutionalism?
