Fenger Pointing

The Imperial Presidency

    One of the best things that the Goldwater Institute does – and it does many – is to bring authors to the Valley whose minds and thoughts one would normally not be exposed to in the course of our workaday lives. Last week it was Gene Healy, senior editor at the Cato Institute, whose latest work is titled The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.
    In a nutshell, the premise of the book is captured in this accusation: “When American scholars lionize presidents who break free from constitutional restraint, when our columnists and talking heads repeatedly call upon the ‘commander in chief’ to dream great dreams and seek the power to achieve them, when voters look to the president for salvation from all problems great and small, it’s the sheerest hypocrisy for Americans to complain that the presidency has grown too big, too powerful, and too menacing.”
    Healy cautions those of us who think that George W. Bush has fostered a resurgent “Imperial Presidency” to dispel ourselves of the notion that a new administration will automatically solve the problem. It’s not that simple. Unfortunately, conservatives and liberals alike agree that our president should have encompassing authority to bestow upon us all manner of things. If you doubt that most Americans call on presidential candidates to grow the economy, improve education, cure AIDS and care for us from hospital neonatal units to hospice farewell, then you haven’t been watching the excruciating Town Halls. If I have to witness one more pathetic citizen stand up and ask the candidate, “What are you going to do for me?” I think I will have to smash my TV.
    Sen. Barack Obama, in his “Audacity of Hope” speech in 2004, promised Americans redemption through presidential politics. “With the right kind of leadership, we can create a kingdom right here on earth,” Obama gushed. Oh, my. I kind of was hoping for the afterlife version (providing dogs are there).
    Gov. Mike Huckabee, actor Chuck Norris’ new best friend, stated in his run for the White House that “America needs positive leadership and a revival of our national soul.”
    Healy wants to know who these people think they are. Candidates act as if the job they are running for is a combination of “guardian angel, national nanny and supreme warlord of the earth,” he states.
    Sen. John McCain appears to worship Franklin D. Roosevelt who liberally pushed the powers of the presidency beyond the Constitution and “nourished the soul.” There’s that chicken soup theory of saving us again. McCain has said that the president needs to be ready from Day 1 to be Commander in Chief of the Economy. Funny, but there is only one Commander in Chief duty that the founders envisioned.
    Healy uses the term Situational Constitutionalism, which he calls a term of art for a syndrome in which people decide which powers the presidency should hold based upon whether or not their buddies are in office. Thus, conservatives hated the overreaching presidential powers when Bill Clinton was in office, but have been tearing down checks on those powers since George W. Bush took over the reins.
    Our country needs a less romantic vision of the presidency, Healy warns, after hearing Bush say that Americans should vote for McCain because “he’ll be strong enough to stand up to our enemies with a heart big enough to hug those who hurt.” Ouch. I thought the days of bragging about “feeling your pain” were mercifully behind us.
    The only time the question, “How many jobs will you create?” was properly answered “None. It’s not the job of the president to create jobs,” was when it was spoken by actor Alan Alda on the popular TV show “West Wing,” Healy informed his audience.
    The author rates Warren G. Hardy as the best president for his great reduction in the size of government and his actions during the Teapot Dome affair. He gives Woodrow Wilson his worst rating for trampling freedom of the press and locking up a man for making speeches against the draft. FDR gets a low rating from Healy due to his internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and for his efforts to pack the U.S. Supreme Court. Jokingly, he notes that the term “draft-dodging, philandering Democrat elected in ’92” can apply to both Grover Cleveland and Bill Clinton.
    Touché.

     Becky Fenger can be reached at beckyfenger@cox.net