How Bush Broke The Government

[dcsmart]

There is nothing new about presidents who are eager to overstep the bounds of their power, whether they are conservative or liberal in their political views. But the strategies that George W. Bush used to strengthen his presidency -- and weaken other branches of government -- have been more widespread than the ones employed in the past. Rather than isolated abuses of executive power, such as Bill Clinton's bombing of Kosovo without congressional approval, the actions of the Bush administration have been the most systematic abuses of executive authority since the branch's powers were curtailed in the wake of Watergate.
"You know how there are all these checks and balances in the government?" says Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. "Under the Bush administration, all that was turned on its head. When you look at what they did, it's like reading the opposite of the Federalist Papers." Despite the fact that Alexander Hamilton clearly articulated that there should be checks on the president's power -- especially in a time of war -- the Bush administration selectively interpreted the Federalist Papers to claim that Congress has no right to restrict the president. Government lawyers such as John Yoo, who worked in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, went so far as to assert that Hamilton's view of "executive unity" allows for a supercharged executive branch with unlimited power.

ARTICLE
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=how_bush_broke_the_government

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. Obama needs to both quickly and completely eliminate the Patriot Act.