NYT editorial: Expanding Presidential power frays democratic fabric

[DeepModem Mom]

Editorial
The Real Agenda
Published: July 16, 2006

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone. While no one questions the determination of the White House to fight terrorism, the methods this administration has used to do it have been shaped by another, perverse determination: never to consult, never to ask and always to fight against any constraint on the executive branch.

One result has been a frayed democratic fabric in a country founded on a constitutional system of checks and balances. Another has been a less effective war on terror....

***

The president’s constant efforts to assert his power to act without consent or consultation has warped the war on terror. The unity and sense of national purpose that followed 9/11 is gone, replaced by suspicion and divisiveness that never needed to emerge. The president had no need to go it alone — everyone wanted to go with him. Both parties in Congress were eager to show they were tough on terrorism. But the obsession with presidential prerogatives created fights where no fights needed to occur and made huge messes out of programs that could have functioned more efficiently within the rules.

Jane Mayer provided a close look at this effort to undermine the constitutional separation of powers in a chilling article in the July 3 issue of The New Yorker. She showed how it grew out of Vice President Dick Cheney’s long and deeply held conviction that the real lesson of Watergate and the later Iran-contra debacle was that the president needed more power and that Congress and the courts should get out of the way....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/opinion/16sun1.html?ex=1153195200&en=4b1acb5f43860dc6&ei=5087%0A

[BlueEyedSon]

1. k & r

good one 'mom

[Catchawave]

2. Just saw this in NYT !

K & R

[Davis_X_Machina]

3. This was not the behavior

...what the 'anthrax' attack was meant to encourage.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Bush - the General Galtieri of the 21st Century

He has opponents tortured and 'disappeared'; he grabs all the power for himself, whatever the country's constitution says; and he invades countries to prop up his flagging popularity.

[The Count]

9. Someone posted once a parallel between those two - it was eerie!

[omega minimo]

5. "It is only now............."

"It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear."

It's great that NYT is willing to pubish this NOW. Starting it with those four words is just SO wrong, in so many ways................


Peace
Cassandra out

[ninkasi]

6. To many of us

the picture became crystal clear in the run up to the invasion of Iraq. It was perfectly obvious that war with Iraq had been a goal of Bush even before he became president. He is such a self-absorbed sociopath, that getting what he wants trumps any other consideration.

He will not suffer a single sleepless night regardless of how many people are killed, or maimed, or have their lives ruined. To him, it's all about HIM. It's always been that way, and he isn't going to change.

[robinlynne]

8. Yep, that line shocked me too. We all knew. The one good thing I can

see is that we are very lucky the republicans decided to attack the NYT. Until then, the NYT had nothing to say about what is going on. Funny thing when the dictatorship smacks you in the face a little, all of a sudden you realize that they have been smacking everybody else for years.....
I hope Bush tries to screw the washington post next. maybe NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN?

[bemildred]

7. Not only that, it's unconstitutional. nt

[AnnieBW]

10. The Full Article's On Truthout

The full article is over on Truthout. You can read it for free there.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071606D.shtml

[WhiteTara]

11. if the NYT starts reporting the *co crimes on

page one above the fold, I will believe we have a chance at saving our democracy. We must have one branch telling about the crimes against humanity perpetrated by these would be thieves of democracy.

edited for spelling