New York Times Editorial: Veto? Who Needs a Veto?

[Rose Siding]

One of the abiding curiosities of the Bush administration is that after more than five years in office, the president has yet to issue a veto. No one since Thomas Jefferson has stayed in the White House this long without rejecting a single act of Congress. Some people attribute this to the Republicans' control of the House and the Senate, and others to Mr. Bush's reluctance to expend political capital on anything but tax cuts for the wealthy and the war in Iraq. Now, thanks to a recent article in The Boston Globe, we have a better answer.

President Bush doesn't bother with vetoes; he simply declares his intention not to enforce anything he dislikes......

The founding fathers never conceived of anything like a signing statement. The idea was cooked up by Edwin Meese III, when he was the attorney general for Ronald Reagan, to expand presidential powers. He was helped by a young lawyer who was a true believer in the unitary presidency, a euphemism for an autocratic executive branch that ignores Congress and the courts. Unhappily, that lawyer, Samuel Alito Jr., is now on the Supreme Court.
...
Like many of Mr. Bush's other imperial excesses, this one serves no legitimate purpose. Congress is run by a solid and iron-fisted Republican majority. And there is actually a system for the president to object to a law: he vetoes it, and Congress then has a chance to override the veto with a two-thirds majority.

That process was good enough for 42 other presidents. But it has the disadvantage of leaving the chief executive bound by his oath of office to abide by the result. This president seems determined not to play by any rules other than the ones of his own making. And that includes the Constitution.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/05/opinion/05fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[central scrutinizer]

1. Nice

But how can they type so well with all that blood on their hands?

[Nite Owl]

2. That's why the Democrats were

supposed to filibuster Alito. Now we are going to get yet another 'if I had known now what I knew then I would have voted no'. We knew, we called and called and faxed and faxed. It really wasn't about prochoice it was about the power of the presidency. They didn't deem it worthy of using a filibuster.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. There is a remedy

This president seems determined not to play by any rules other than the ones of his own making. And that includes the Constitution.

And the remedy for a president who will not play by those rules is impeachment and removal. Richard Nixon was a blatantly imperial president and Bush even more so. Nixon was driven from office under the threat of impeachment, and so should Bush be ousted.

Another thing we might want to look at is whether the office of the president itself is the problem. Bush is the second president in my lifetime to push his power to the point where it endangered personal liberty and Constitutional government; of course, Nixon was the other. This would suggest that the problem is systemic with the presidency. Presidents simply have the tendency to move toward dictatorship. Bush has and Nixon had a view of the Constitution where the President is a dictator restrained only by his ability or inability to be re-elected after four years.

A few weeks ago, I suggested a new constitution featuring a parliamentary system in which the powers of the executive branch as we know it are divided between the Prime Minister and his cabinet, who are members of the House of Representatives, and a weakened Senate, which has the power to veto some legislation and approve most of the PM's appointments; the Senate will have no power to propose legislation of its own. The difference between the Senate and the House is that Senators serve a longer term (12 years as opposed to a maximum of four).

[lady lib]

4. K&R. n/t