Richard Greene (BBC): Kings in the White House

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Tuesday January 18

Kings in the White House
By Richard Greene
BBC News

The US president is now as powerful as a monarch, according to a new book by an American professor published to coincide with the start of George W Bush's second term.

Even powerful mid-century presidents such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognised checks on their authority, says Stephen Graubard, who is old enough to have attended Roosevelt's last inauguration in 1945.

But since Ronald Reagan, the powers of a president and his "courtiers" have become increasingly untrammelled, Professor Graubard told BBC News.

"He is not totally unchecked but his power is immense," he says of recent presidents, several of whose closest advisers - including Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, McGeorge Bundy and Zbigniew Brzezinski - he has known personally.

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