Obama and the imperial presidency (The Guardian)

[kpete]

Obama and the imperial presidency
Jack Balkin
guardian.co.uk

The Bush administration has worked hard to increase presidential power. Will
Barack Obama enters the White House with more constitutional and legal power than any president in US history. One of his biggest problems will be figuring out what to do with it.

For seven years, the Bush administration has tried to increase presidential power through secrecy and unilateral action, claiming constitutional authority to disregard statutory restrictions and congressional oversight. Many of its gambits backfired. But despite its clumsiness, the Bush administration did not materially weaken the American presidency. Far from it. Obama will begin with broad new powers over domestic and international surveillance and congressional approval for military tribunals and existing interrogation and detention practices. He will oversee a new bureaucracy devoted to homeland security and greatly expanded intelligence services. He will command military forces and state-of-the-art weaponry strategically placed around the globe. And thanks to the recent bail-out bill, Obama's new Treasury secretary will enjoy enormous discretion to nationalise the banking industry and reshape the financial sector.

To top it off, Obama will begin his first term with overwhelming public support – if not outright adulation – and a Congress controlled by members of his own party. No matter how much the current president damaged the prestige of his office, his successor will be all the more powerful and influential simply by not being Bush.

Many of the problems Obama will face stem from the presidency-on-steroids he inherits. First up is what to do with the Guantánamo detainees. If Obama closes the infamous base, he will either have to release the detainees or bring them to the US for trial. If he chooses the latter approach, he will have to decide whether to use the ordinary criminal process or devise a new set of national security courts to replace the defective military tribunals Congress approved in 2006. Either solution will pose enormous technical and logistical problems, and separate national security courts create significant risks to civil liberties.

more at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/nov/12/obama-white-house-barackobama

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. WOW good article! Thanks. K & R! nt

[gateley]

2. K&R! nt

[kayakjohnny]

3. Nice. Some great writing comes from that paper. It would be great if our reporters

could produce these kind of pieces more frequently.

[Quantess]

4. The British media is doing a better job than our own media.

It's funny...CNN has hired several talking heads with British accents lately.

[pberq]

5. Giving up power is harder than it sounds.

We already knew that Obama is going to have his hands full, but this takes it to another level.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/nov/12/obama-white-house-barackobama

". . .Giving up power is harder than it sounds. Obama's attorney general will have to craft new limits and new methods of accountability. This, in turn, may invite intense scrutiny of what happened in the immediate past. Both Congress and the public may demand to know about secret orders and opinions authorising torture, domestic spying or other forms of illegal activity. Obama and his advisers will have to decide whether political prudence and national security require them to conceal the previous administration's dirty little secrets.

Indeed, the more we find out about the excesses of the Bush years, the louder will be the demands for investigating and prosecuting Bush administration officials for violating national and international law. Whether or not such prosecutions are deserved, they threaten to derail the next president's positive agenda. Political opponents will scream that the new administration is criminalising ordinary politics and punishing patriots. Bipartisanship will quickly become difficult if not impossible. This may tempt Obama to sweep past wrongdoing under the rug, hoping that he can reform the executive branch entirely in secret. But secret reforms raise many of the same problems of accountability as the secret laws they replace."

[me b zola]

6. K&R

[jazzjunkysue]

7. Wow. I say, let the questionable guantanamo detainees go and really

investigate the rest. If nothing else, put them in a humane prison where they can have visitors and all the rest. Put it all behind us.

Let the rest go out and talk-Dump the information all at once. An avalanche of treachery. Just blow the whole wad. Implicate whomever comes up: GOP or dem. wipe the slate clean.

It will take a few dem senators with it. The cost will be well worth it.

Repair habeas corpus, stop the wire taps, dispose of unneeded crap like the patriot act and all the extra BS earmarks that go with it.

Dump No Child Left behind. Pare down the fed ed. to a record keeping office and only bring in initiatives and experts as needed. Start a math/science initative for underrepresented students: Girls and minority boys.

Stop GM from continuing the bloated practices and let them re-tool for green energy and hybrid cars. If luxury cars become more expensive, I'll cry myself to sleep, but I'll survive.

That scene in Men In Black where they flush the intelligence agency: That's what we need.

Jiggle the handle a little and then let loose.

[AtomicKitten]

8. Obama will restore the balance our founders intended.

I say that confidently because Obama has spoken passionately about restoring the Constitution.