John Dean: "Unitary Executive...Merely Another Term For Authoritarian Presidency"

[kpete]

The Impact of Authoritarian Conservatism On American Government: Part Three in a Three-Part Series
By JOHN W. DEAN
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Tuesday, Sep. 25, 2007

This is the final part of this three-part series of columns, in which FindLaw columnist John Dean discusses his recent book, Conservatives Without Conscience. Part One and Part Two appeared earlier on this site. - Ed.

..................

The GOP's Authoritarian Reconception of the Presidency

Nixon was an authoritarian president. So was Reagan. Indeed, it was during the Reagan years that conservatives made a complete change in their thinking about the American presidency. This change -- not coincidentally, I believe -- occurred as authoritarian conservatives began to dominate the GOP.

The authoritarian conservative philosophy was fully articulated by Terry Eastland, a former Reagan Justice Department Director of Public Affairs, in his 1992 book Energy in the Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency. This is a book that was studied closely by then-Halliburton Chairman Dick Cheney, and then-Texas Governor George W. Bush and his staff, long before they arrived in Washington in 2001.

"Reagan demonstrated that the strong presidency is necessary to effect ends sought by most conservatives," Eastland wrote. For conservatives, Eastland's book made clear, a strong president is one who wears his commander-in-chief uniform every day, and tells Americans how they should think and act, rather than one who responds to the wishes of the voters. It is a Father-Knows-Best presidency, one that considers Americans to be children who do not know what is best for themselves.

Nixon created the "imperial presidency." After the public rejected that concentration of power, in the aftermath of Watergate, Reagan restored the imperial presidency in another guise. Now, Bush and Cheney have created the post-imperial presidency. Using the threat of terrorism as their justification, Bush and Cheney have embraced the so-called "unitary executive theory" - which, in truth, is merely another term for an authoritarian presidency.



read the rest at:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20070925.html

[porphyrian]

1. Are there any Authoritarian Conservatives running in '08 as Democrats?

We know that, most likely, all of the republicans are Authoritarian Conservatives, but do we count any amongst our ranks, and are they running for office this election?

[MissMarple]

2. Hoo boy! I can think of one, but I won't mention any names.

:hide:

[porphyrian]

3. Heh, right. But I'm just asking because if we do, then we need to be criticizing them...

...and the idea that we should be loyal to them just because they are registered as a Democrat is so much bullshit. You don't ignore cancer because it's growing inside of you.

[MissMarple]

6. You've got that right. n/t

[L. Coyote]

4. Oxymoronic.

[porphyrian]

5. Is it? There are both authoritarian Democrats and conservative Democrats.

It isn't too much of a stretch to think there can be those who are both.