Thoughts on "unitary executive" powers

[LuckyTheDog]

I've read it over and over. There is nothing Article II that give Bush the powers he says he has.

Article II delegates duties to the president. But it does not say that the president is immune to reasonable regulation and oversight by Congress and/or court decisions. That interpretation "finds" a lot more than is there.

Congress can and does pass laws that the president is bound to follow. From my point of view, so long as the laws passed are consistent with Congress' oversight and "checking" role, they are Constitutional. Only if Congress tried to usurp presidential power (say, by setting up its own army or micromanaging the day-to-day affairs of federal departments) would the laws be unconstitutional.

Likewise, the president is bound (as is Congress) by the Supreme Court's interpretation of what the Constitution means.

The whole "unitary executive" thing is a radical idea that reads into Article II a kind of absolute power that is nowhere granted by the language of the Constitution.

What am I missing here?

[Vincardog]

1. You missed nothing. They want you and us to shut up and drink the Kool Aid

"unitary executive" powers are a farce

[MadMaddie]

2. You aren't missing anything....

His keepers Gonzalez, Rove and Cheney keep are telling him it's okay to read between the lines and improvise.

[radio4progressives]

3. Scalito says it does - that's why it was so important to defeat these

bastards - at least three if not four of these "theorists" are now sitting on SCOTUS and that's why it was so IMPERATIVE to have defeated these fascists.

The 19 Dems who chose to cancel their "NO" votes by refusing to vote against cloture is actually enabling this interpretation of the (non-existant) so called "unitary executive" authority and powers based on a (cult theory) to prevail. these vichy bastards need to be removed from office right along with the chimp and his minions.

[0rganism]

4. That's "strict constructionism" for ya

> That interpretation "finds" a lot more than is there.

Judicial interpretation is the art of reading between the lines to find intent, and none are quite so creative as those who lay claim to the title of "strict constructionist".

[JHB]

5. "Constitutions were made to be broken"...

...to paraphrase Napoleon.

Or to translate Gonzalez from the other day:
"We need Absolute Power because anything less is too much paperwork."

[PhilipShore]

7. I agree

I was thinking the same thing—they are too lazy to even rubber stamp it.

[Just Me]

6. You are missing nothing. The neoconsters make shit up all the time.

They are the ones being "activists", making up new expanded powers out of clouds. Don't forget the "enemy combatant" bs utilized to justify holding folks, indefinitely. Also, "torture" doesn't mean "torture", anymore, and wmds mean "spreading democracy",...and so on and so forth.

[MadMaddie]

8. You nailed it...

They are being the "activists", I don't understand why we can't package that and push that out there among many of the other issues. We have little to none commerical activity...if we do have anything it's not effective. We have until November to push the message....

Ok, yes we don't have equal access to the Media (that's huge). When the major media outlets don't allow equal and fair advertising then we go to the courts and say there is a monopoly on the media which does not allow for competition and request for regulation and break up of these organizations.

How do we get our message out there?

[Just Me]

10. I usually avoid adopting RW-speak.

I'm sure there is a better way of articulating the neocons' persistent misuse of language in order to manipulate the public.

How do we get our message out there? It would help if we were all conveying the same message, over and over and over, again. Consistency and repetition is necessary to get through to people,...that's a fact.

[MadMaddie]

11. That's true...a consistent message

I agree I want to get away from the neocon persistent misuse of language to manipulate the public, I want us to push the "Cold hard Truth", no twisting, no spinning just the facts.

I think what we also need is a leader that can pull ...DU, DLC, DNC, Huffington Post Liberals, NAACP, Womens organizations and all of the other organizations together in one room and push the one consistent message. I am not naive enough to think that everyone is going to agree on everything, however; if everyone could agree that we have to remove these corrupt people from our government and we have to do it by working together that would be a start.

:shrug: I just don't know who would be that leader?

[jsamuel]

9. nothing, it is a dictatorial power grab

[LuckyTheDog]

13. That's what I thought (nt)

[Kagemusha]

12. Unitary executive means executive, legislative, judiciary power in 1 man

It's what people used to call a dictatorship.

[jpak]

14. On November 10 2008 I'm gonna git me a bumpersticker that sez

HILLARY
THE UNITARY PRESIDENT

lol

:)

[Hosnon]

15. You are missing two words: "Herein granted":

Each article begins with the phrase: The Legislative/Executive/Judicial powers shall vest in X.

However, only the legislative branch says: The legislative powers HEREIN GRANTED shall vest in X.

There is a split as to how much importance should be placed on those two words. I am of the mind that the Framers were educated and very legally adept and knew that two little words could change a lot.

Basically, the argument goes that the idea of Legislative Authority is limited in the Legislative branch by those two words. Since they do not exist pertaining to the Executive or the Judiciary, those branches are vested with the entirety of the relative ideas at the time.

THAT is where the argument comes from that there are extra-constitutional powers that the President is endowed with.

Sounds crazy but I have a hard time believing that the Framers would have overlooked something with such major ramifications.