×
THE EXECUTIVE QUESTION. I understand completely the political reasons why we won'd have a chance to vote for the guy who helped lead Overseas Democrats For Udall 30 years ago when I was pitching Mo to people on Milwaukee's South Side. However, Russ Feingold's departure pretty much guarantees that the issue of lunatic Executive caesarism is not going to play a big role among the people seeking to be the next ones to run the Executive branch. (Pat Leahy, it should be said, is making very intriguing mouth-noises on the subject, as regards the new Democratic congressional majorities.) I still believe that one reason Michael Dukakis didn't hit Iran-Contra harder in 1988 -- other than the obvious one that his campaign was run by half-bright stoats -- is that he could envision needing to develop an "off the books" capacity himself to respond to some future crisis. Nobody runs for president without feeling deeply in their ambitious little souls that they're going to need a dollop of authoritarian juice to get things done. (Comes from reading all that Neustadt back in the 1960's, I fear, and in our apparently deathless JFK Complex.).
However, for six years, we have been afflicted with an Executive branch run amok, asserting privileges rejected 700 years ago, flaunting its disdain for the Constitution, and ignoring any limits whatsoever. In doing so, it has habituated the country to accept the habits of authoritarian government. Deep in the weeds of this Newsweek poll is this interesting passage:
Another 69 percent said they were concerned that the new Congress would keep the administration "from doing what is necessary to combat terrorism," and two-thirds said they were concerned it would spend too much time investigating the administration and Republican scandals.If you don't think that, say, the Clinton people -- that's you, Rahm, and you, too, James and Paul, and probably you, Senator Schumer -- aren't already fastening on those numbers to tell "serious" Democratic candidates to take a dive on killing the unitary executive dead, I have some vacation property in Arkansas I can get for you cheap. There's no more important question on which to inquire of people who want to be the next president than what they believe the legitimate parameters -- or, more important, the legitimate limits -- on their power should be. Here's a hint -- anyone who prefaces their answer with the phrase, "We have to understand that the world is different..." isn't worth your time.
--Charles P. Pierce