"No Checks, Many Imbalances" by Bush Critic George Will

[Rose Siding]

The next time a president asks Congress to pass something akin to what Congress passed on Sept. 14, 2001 -- the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) -- the resulting legislation might be longer than Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past." Congress, remembering what is happening today, might stipulate all the statutes and constitutional understandings that it does not intend the act to repeal or supersede.

But, then, perhaps no future president will ask for such congressional involvement in the gravest decision government makes -- going to war. Why would future presidents ask, if the present administration successfully asserts its current doctrine? It is that whenever the nation is at war, the other two branches of government have a radically diminished pertinence to governance, and the president determines what that pertinence shall be. This monarchical doctrine emerges from the administration's stance that warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency targeting American citizens on American soil is a legal exercise of the president's inherent powers as commander in chief, even though it violates the clear language of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was written to regulate wartime surveillance.
....
Besides, terrorism is not the only new danger of this era. Another is the administration's argument that because the president is commander in chief, he is the "sole organ for the nation in foreign affairs." That non sequitur is refuted by the Constitution's plain language, which empowers Congress to ratify treaties, declare war, fund and regulate military forces, and make laws "necessary and proper" for the execution of all presidential powers . Those powers do not include deciding that a law -- FISA, for example -- is somehow exempted from the presidential duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/15/AR2006021502003.html

Of course, the pompous gasbag, having not fully emerged from his willfully induced ideological coma, goes on to suggest Congress should, at this point, dash off a re-write of some of the laws bush broke with nary a slap on the wrist.

[babylonsister]

1. I've waited a long time to see Will described as a * critic,

even if it's not true!

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

2. I was amazed when reading one of his columns

in my local paper a few months ago that he was critical of Bushco. I wish the paper would print his column every Saturday rather than wasting space on O'Leilly's rantings

[bluerum]

3. George Will is a wordy, obfuscating RW mouthpiece.

"
Of course, the pompous gasbag, having not fully emerged from his willfully induced ideological coma, goes on to suggest Congress should, at this point, dash off a re-write of some of the laws bush broke with nary a slap on the wrist.
"

I would expect no less from this whining right winger. He is not so much criticizing BushCo. as blaming congress for leaving BushCo. no choice but to break new ground for executive powers. And, it seems that in retrospect he finds the results agreeable.

I wonder if he would feel the same way about a Democratic congress and executive?

[yurbud]

4. Can you imagine if Clinton chose to ignore deposition in Paula Jones case?